Hybrid Fiction, Issue 7

Copyright Š 2020 Hybrid Fiction. All material appearing in Hybrid Fiction is copyright. Reproduction in whole or part is not permitted without permission in writing from the editor. All characters and events are fictitious. The publisher bears no responsibility and accepts no liability for the work herein.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Table of Contents Cover by Eden “Ed” Richards “Green” by O. Sander .......................................................................................................................................... 3 Jaedric is a soldier in the theocratic underground city of Aldemor, where the citizens hold sacred a mysterious drug they call Green. When heretical rebels attack the city and attempt to destroy the source of Green, a wounded Jaedric goes alone to stop them.

When Gods Sleep: Parts II and III by Marco Cultrera ......................................................................................... 10 After having proven her worth on the battlefield, Merad is granted access to the God-King. The final showdown is unlike anything she was expecting, and it will ripple all the way up to the Cosmos, teaching the Gods themselves the most valuable lesson.

“Sighisoara 3.0” by Russell Hemmell ............................................................................................................... 30 What is the secret of the most successful theme park for horror fans? A reported decides to find out, but she discovers that cyborgs are not friendlier than the vampires they pretend to be.

Mommy by Graham Kennedy .............................................................................................................................34 “The Vengeance of Hallowtide” by Paul R. Hardy............................................................................................ 35 1915: Two women infiltrate a British army warehouse by the Thames to liberate the souls of the dead from the war machines within which they are enslaved.

“Beware the Snake” by Heather Santo ........................................................................................................... 48 An on-call apothecary and a prophecy come full circle.

Not of this Earth by Jupiter! by Graham Kennedy ............................................................................................. 51 “Circle of Blood” by Marcus Vance ................................................................................................................... 52 A detective story tinged with fairy tale and a hint of eldritch horror.

“A Day Like Any Other” by Alexandra Seidel.................................................................................................... 55 A psychic describes her sinister work for an exploitive government agency.

“Pip” by Toeken ................................................................................................................................................ 63 A slightly futuristic retelling of Shelley’s Modern Prometheus with Blade Runner thrown in.

About the authors and artists............................................................................................................................ 73

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

GREEN

By O. Sander

When the Great Tempest consumed half the world and the rains ceased, when the land was poisoned and polluted, everywhere was death. Life Itself was threatened, so It gave to men the plan to create the sacred Green, that Life might channel Itself through this and preserve all the living. Thus by the science of Aldemor, the world was blessed with Green. One woman of Aldemor volunteered herself to be the holy Host and Mother who would save the land. Her bounty of Green goes out to sustain the cities of the Way, and she sings her silent joy at being the vessel of Life eternal.

– The Way and Law of Green: Life and the Mother The blare of klaxons roused 12N-Algar9-Jaedric from quietus and ended his scheduled downtime. His brain was muzzy from interrupted quietus and lack of rest, but his body responded as it had long been trained to do. He strapped into his armor, and the familiar touch gave him a jolt of adrenalin that woke him from the lingering of the quietus trance. The cold metal caress of his suit said, on a more visceral level than even the klaxons, that action was imminent.

Jaedric checked the readouts on his armor's vambrace. It showed heartbeat and respiration within expected parameters and systems fully charged. He chanted the ritual, "Green is Life," and popped open a panel, slotting a spare vial of Green into an empty socket. He would need the extra energy with quietus over early. In seconds he felt the Green kick in, filling him with holy purpose and a volatile, almost manic vitality. He felt like a tightly coiled spring ready for release, and a feral grin transformed Jaedric's features from almost delicate to predatory. Whatever came next, he was ready.  9E-Algar9-Fandiel crouched behind the remains of a wall next to Jaedric. A spray of bullets peppered their shelter, kicking up a small cloud of masonry.

"Do you know who's out there?" Fandiel asked Jaedric in a lull between bursts of gunfire.

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"No. Do we ever? They tell us to go here and terminate the targets, and we go there and terminate the targets. We don't need to know." Jaedric ducked lower as another burst of enemy fire hit the ruined wall. He hated all this waiting. Green sang in him, and he wanted to rush the enemy and wreak havoc before the energy faded.

"Rumor says Ashinton fell from the Way of Green and now…" Fandiel's eyes were dark. "…It withers." Jaedric shuddered.

"But I hear Ashinton refuses to accept withering as the Law of Green says they should."

"What? They refuse the Law?" Jaedric was shocked by the blasphemy.

Whatever Fandiel would have said was lost as an explosion turned a nearby chunk of wall, and the two Algar10s taking shelter behind it, into a cloud of deadly stone shrapnel and shredded flesh.

Jaedric felt more than saw sharp pieces of shrapnel fly past him. His fellow A9 was not so lucky. A deadly piece of stone from the blast took him in the cheek, just below the eye, drilling straight through and out the back of his head. The impact threw him to the ground where he lay still in a rapidly spreading pool of blood.

A figure in enemy colors charged through the smoke and debris on the heels of the explosion.

Jaedric was still reeling from the sudden turn of the battle, but his long training and the divine Green coursing through his blood saved him. He was a fraction faster than his enemy as he brought up his weapon and fired. Jaedric's foe reflexively squeezed the trigger on his gun even as he died, sending a burst of bullets into the ground.

Green might or might not have saved Jaedric's life, but it was fickle. A ricochet from that last, dying act of the Ashinton man caught Jaedric and spun him around. He fell half across Fandiel, their blood mingling and painting the rubble around and under them crimson.  Pain was the first thing that he noticed, a general awareness that quickly resolved into twin agonies in his shoulder and jaw. He became aware a moment later of sounds of battle, distant gunshots and the thud of an explosion. The fight had moved beyond him, but he was sure he could only have been unconscious a short time.

Jaedric tried to lever himself upright, but the flare of pain in his shoulder stopped him. It was badly damaged, and his right arm was useless. He gritted his teeth determinedly in preparation to try again. Fresh agony shot through his face and he nearly blacked out. Broken, he thought as the darkness retreated from the edges of his vision, just perfect.

Careful to rely only on his good arm, Jaedric finally managed to slide awkwardly off Fandiel's corpse and sit up. The wound in his shoulder still bled, red gore mingled with softly glowing viridian streaks. Green was giving its blessing of healing, but even with the extra vial, Jaedric didn't think it would be enough to start knitting flesh and bone back to some kind of order.

"Green is Life," Jaedric intoned the ritual and reached out to open the panel in Fandiel's suit. The A9 wouldn't need whatever Green he had left. Jaedric fumbled with his off-hand, but finally managed Hybrid Fiction October 2020

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to remove the half-empty vial from Fandiel's suit and slot it into his own. Green fire burned in his shoulder, but he needed more. The injury was eating through all of his reserves.

Jaedric climbed unsteadily to his feet and made his way to the Ashinton man he'd killed. He spoke the ritual phrase again, and then stopped. The armor was in Ashinton colors, but there was no slot in the vambrace for Green. Jaedric's fine brows came down in a frown and a suspicion dawned.

He reached out again, this time fumbling at the neck of his enemy. In a moment, he pulled out a chain with a medallion on it. The roughly modeled dragon head relief on the medallion told him all he needed to know.

"Heretics!" he managed to hiss, the pain in his broken jaw only feeding his rage this time. His hand closed tightly around the medallion, until the edges bit into his flesh, and then he ripped the chain from the dead man's neck.

His right arm remained too injured to be of any use, though that last vial of Green had helped stop the bleeding. It would have to do. He grabbed his gun, grimacing at the unfamiliar weight in his left hand. Wither take the heretic's soul! he thought in rage, then hefted the weapon and set off through the rubble of the old city for the gates of Aldemor proper.

There was only one possible destination for the Pyre heretics: Aldemor's Temple of Life, and the chamber of Mother Green below it. Only a handful of Algands, the Priests of Life, and Mother Green's Sindri attendants would be at the temple, unaware of their danger. He needed to warn them.

Maintaining silence to prevent the enemy from intercepting communications was less important than warning the city now. He would message base to get a detachment to the temple‌ and then he cursed the heretic again, bitterly, as he realized he couldn't reach base. The communicator had been part of the armor assembly at his right shoulder, destroyed by that ricochet.

He knew he could double back and try Fandiel's communicator. It might have survived though Fandiel had not. He hesitated, and twin detonations from the direction of the last line of city defenses shook the ground. He gave up on the idea of going back. He chose instead to pick up his pace, though running in the rubble jolted his injuries and sent fresh pain blazing through him. He hadn't been unconscious long. If any of the Pyre got through, he shouldn't be that far behind them.

He could ambush the heretics while they were trying to deal with the last circle of defenses around Aldemor.

As he neared the fortifications around the city gates, the gunfire ceased. He might have concluded that the Pyre had been repulsed by the superior strength of Aldemor's defenders, but not today. The lazy drift of dark smoke from the direction of the gates felt more ominous than victorious.

Jaedric slowed his pace and moved from cover to cover as he approached the gates. He was close enough now to see the ruins of the defenses, blasted apart by the explosions he'd heard. He had yet to see any of the heretics, but he was sure that they had to be close.

Movement at the mouth of the tunnel leading down into Aldemor from the ruins of the old city drew Jaedric's attention. He'd been right; the Pyre was close. A small band ducked behind crumbling walls, and a moment later the ground shook with a concussion from underground. They were blowing the interior doors.

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Jaedric braced against the wall he was using as cover, sighted the enemy, and calculated. The distance was too great, and there were too many of them. Even though he had surprise on his side, he knew he'd never get them all before they could get inside the underground city. At least that explosion gave the warning he had been unable to, so they wouldn't be caught completely unprepared.

He couldn't sit here and do nothing. Though he had no plan, he cradled his gun and crawled across the rubble, staying low and behind the ruined walls of the old city as he made his way toward the entrance to Aldemor.

Jaedric hadn't gotten far when he found the first corpse, an Algar8 he recognized. He didn't remember her name, but he knew her job. She was a medic, and in her kit with her other medical supplies would be vials of holy Green. He could just see the strap of her kit under her. He grabbed it with his good hand and jerked at the strap until he got the med kit out from under the A8's body. He flipped the flap of the kit back and there they were, a rack strapped safely down and filled with vials that gave off a soft emerald glow. With all the strength from this much Green, he'd be able to take care of the Pyre heretics. This was his answer.

Time was running out, and there wasn't enough left to slot the vials in two by two and wait for them to be absorbed. Not with this many vials. The A9 fished around inside the med kit and came up with a jet injector. He'd never heard of Green being used this way, and he suspected it was vaguely blasphemous to try. He also had no choice. He clawed off the remains of the armor on his right arm, hissing as the Green injectors in the forearm were ripped from their ports in his skin. The jet injector had a reservoir attachment that could hold several vials of Green at once. It was meant for mass injections. Jaedric loaded it with most of the vials from the med kit.

May Green bless me now, he thought as he pressed the injector against his right arm. "Green is Life!" he howled, and pulled the trigger again and again, rapid fire, moving the injector to a new spot after each pull.

He almost made it through the entire contents of the reservoir before the burning set in. His right arm felt like it was filled with a sudden, intense fire, eating him from within. The jet injector fell from his other hand and he clutched at his arm as a high-pitched, wordless whine of agony issued from his mouth. The feeling spread rapidly up his shoulder and into the rest of him. Jaedric jerked, then fell backward as the burning energy of Green ignited in his chest and his body spasmed. He thought his heart would pound its way out of his chest. He thought he would detonate like one of the grenades the Pyre used. When the massive amount of Green hit his brain a bare moment later, he blacked out.

Green wouldn't leave him in the painless darkness. It was in him, and it needed release. It would not stay pent up, unused. The Green in his veins and brain poured a burst of energy along his nerves.

Consciousness hit Jaedric like a live wire. He felt made of green fire, and even his vision now had a viridian haze that tinted everything. Green-tinged tears leaked from his eyes. The pain was gigantic, terrible—and beautiful.

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still there, and he figured it probably still hurt. He just no longer felt it when exquisite green fire ran along every nerve.

The mouth of Aldemor lay before him, and beyond it the Pyre heretics were headed for the heart of the temple, where Green grew and gave the city Life. They thought they would destroy it all in the name of their false god. Now Green, in the form of Jaedric, would destroy them first.  Bodies, some Pyre heretics but mostly Aldemor defenders, were scattered along the corridors Jaedric moved through. Most of their defenses would be centered where the vials of prepared Green were stored and not the holy chambers beneath the Temple of Life, where Mother Green lived and gave her blessing to fill those vials.

An insistent, deep itch had begun in Jaedric's right arm, centered around the injection sites. He spared it a glance as he ran and saw that a pale emerald sheen covered his skin. Jaedric didn't like it but could not take the time to consider what might mean. He had to get to the temple.

The double doorway to the high-domed Temple of Life was just ahead. One of the doors hung half off its hinges, and as he neared, he heard voices. The words were too garbled by distance and echoes thrown back from the temple dome to make out, but the tone was desperate. The pleading voices were cut off by a sudden burst of gunfire. Rage filled the A9 as he listened to the murder of the unarmed Algands.

Jaedric burst into the main sanctuary of the temple, firing into the group of heretics that were already making their way to the doors at the back of the large, round room. Green sang its song at a roar within him as three of the Pyre fell. Its joy and its ferocity made him reckless. He ignored the pillars he could have taken cover behind, instead continuing his charge in righteous ecstasy. He fired as he went, and a hymn to Mother Green spilled from lips that were now starting to show a tinge of viridian.

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unmoving on the floor. Two ran on through the doors at the back of the sanctuary. The rest of the Pyre opened fire on Jaedric. Several bullets hit, but he laughed and sang another hymn as he returned fire. He could feel the green fire inside him intensifying to anguish around the points where he'd been hit, but he kept going.

"What is that thing?" Fear filled the man's voice. The heretic got no answer as Jaedric put a bullet in his throat.

The last heretic fired, and Jaedric felt something like an explosion of green flame as the bullet entered his chest. So this is death, was his last thought.

Green had permeated Jaedric entirely by that time. It was Life, and Life would not be denied today. Tendrils and leaves filled his wounds, sealed them. A jolt of energy restarted his heart. The massive overdose he had given himself moved within him and he found himself back on his feet and his gun in his hand. There was no joy now in the burning of Green consuming him from the inside. Everything now was just blazing emerald fire. He sang no hymns but screamed for release as his body made its way through the domed sanctuary and toward the chambers of Mother Green.

A blast went off ahead, and the Green in Jaedric forced him to a run. If there had been enough of Jaedric left to be appalled, he would have been by the destruction of the equipment in the first chamber. Sindri lay dead, surrounded by the shattered and slagged equipment they used. The overhead pipes that fed water to Mother Green's room were broken and pouring a steady flood on the floor. The door beyond had been blown open, and the deep emerald light that spilled through the gap could only come from Mother Green.

There was no chance of surprise this time. The burning that filled him was too much. He couldn't stop his screams of pain, but Jaedric went on anyway. The Mother had to be protected at any cost.

Mother Green stood, a female shape made entirely of vine and leaves, with her hands extended in a gesture of supplication, inside the glass cubicle where she lived. Her mouth moved, but she made no sound. The Pyre heretics stood between her and Jaedric. One was in the midst of swinging a heavy hammer to shatter the glass. The other two opened fire on Jaedric. He felt every bullet as it hit him. He felt the blaze of Green intensify at every new wound. His body jigged from the multiple impacts, but Green did not let him fall. It did not let him die. Instead, he stepped forward and raised the gun, but it only gave a dry clicking when he pulled the trigger. He threw the empty weapon aside with a sound that was half-growl, half-scream, and leapt for his nearest enemy.

Jaedric's hands were now covered in what looked almost like fur as they came up to grab the man facing him. The heretic fired. Jaedric felt the bullets entering him, but he no longer cared. It was just one more pain in a symphony of agony. He didn't let it stop him from delivering a powerful blow Hybrid Fiction October 2020

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that knocked the heretic's head back and followed it up with a strike to the throat that left the man fighting to breathe through a crushed windpipe.

As he turned to deal with the last two, the one with the hammer finally succeeded in breaking through the thick glass of Mother Green's cubicle. His own screams were joined by Mother Green's.

His brain, startled, noted that she did have a voice. The cubicle must have been soundproofed.

His body, no longer under his control but entirely taken over by Green, kept moving even as he was distracted. It grabbed one of the remaining Pyre as she splashed liquid into the cubicle and the smell of fuel filled the air. With strength beyond anything Jaedric had known, his body lifted the woman and slammed her into the jagged glass of the broken cubicle wall, impaling her through the throat. It leaped for the last heretic before the other had stopped twitching.

Too late. Jaedric watched as she managed to strike a spark, igniting the fuel before his body could stop her. With a roar, Jaedric threw the woman into the fire. She screamed as she splashed into the fuel, the fire quickly climbing her.

Jaedric spared her no more thought. He grabbed for Mother Green and dragged her burning body from the cubicle. With the water supply cut off, he couldn't hope for the safety systems to save her. He beat at the flames as Mother screamed. His hands caught alight and flames ran up his arms, turning the growing green of his skin to black char. Finally he threw his arms around her, smothering the flames between their bodies, and rolled her together with himself across the floor until the rest of the fire was out.  When the remaining Sindri technicians arrived, they found Mother Green and Jaedric still on the floor, howling their pain and entwined like lovers. Jaedric had transformed, now a humanoid shape made from tendrils, vines, and leaves like Mother. The fire of Green inside Jaedric flowed into Mother, and hers into him, fusing them together as it healed them. They pleaded with the Sindri to kill them and end their pain, but the technicians ignored their anguish as they had been ignoring Mother's for decades. They built a new cubicle, large enough for two, and laid Jaedric and Mother inside. The soundproof chamber was sealed, and light and water given to them until time to unseal and harvest the Green growing eternally from their tortured flesh.

When the Pyre Heresy threatened to end everything, a man of Aldemor sacrificed himself to save Mother Green from their fires. The Mother gave him immortality and took him as her consort, and together they silently sing the glory and joy of Green to each other for all the days to come, for Green is Life and their Life is forever. It will not be denied.

– The Way and Law of Green: Endless Joy

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

WHEN GODS SLEEP: Parts II and III

By Marco Cultrera

Slacked jaws, wide opened and bewildered eyes, cheeks suddenly losing color. Merad saw all shades of confusion on the audience’s faces. Those that were already standing up when she had revealed herself, froze mid motion, adding a grotesque posture to their bewildered expression, while muffled words arose from everywhere, merging into an awkward murmur.

“What… How… A woman…”

On her part, she remained perfectly still, like an immutable statue, but her stoic posture was a façade, as her insides were tightening up like load bearing knots. The moment she had been dreading throughout her years of training had arrived. Were her results in the tournament enough to be accepted in the army? Or was her mission, and possibly her life, going to end right there?

The Head Conscripter and the other three cadets in the arena could only stare at her.

“What travesty is this?” Sithlin recovered first.

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Hordun stood up, but Merad forced herself to speak first. “No travesty, I’m Merad, I used to be a maid, but now I’m a soldier and I earned my place in the army.”

Saying those few words, rehearsed in her head countless times, had almost unraveled her. Almost.

Everybody that she had ever known was looking at her, utterly bewildered because of what she was and what she had done, but somehow she was finding the inner strength to stand her ground.

“A woman?” the Head Conscripter said. “That’s nonsense! An insult to the God-King!”

The people in the stands were too shocked to repeat the ritual praise following the enunciation of the name of their ruler.

“There’s no explicit prohibition in the canon of the trials about the gender of the contestants,” Hordun bellowed from the stands. Of course, there wasn’t. The very idea of a woman soldier was so unfathomable that nobody had bothered to codify such exclusion.

The Head Conscripter pointed at Merad, while still addressing Hordun. “You instilled this arrogance in her?” his voice trembled with disbelief. “One of the greatest soldiers ever to serve the God King-” “His perfection humbles us,” the audience responded this time, but the words could be barely heard.

“-suddenly turned into a heretic?”

“Arrogance?” Hordun blurted. “If anything, she should be commended. She has lost her reproductive ability to no fault of her own. Since joining the Sacred Mothers was no longer an option, she begged me to train her as a cadet. If she couldn’t give birth to soldiers, she wanted to serve our divine ruler in the next best way, become one. I ask all of you now, is that really the behavior of a heretic?”

The silence was suddenly absolute in the arena.

“I had my doubts,” Hordun continued, “but I decided to give her a chance and you’ve all witnessed how her years of dedication to our ruler’s cause have turned her into one of the finest fighters of this year’s class. She WON the right to be a vice commander in tomorrow’s skirmish in the arena, with her sword, just like all the men who did it before her in years past.”

The Head Conscripter was suddenly at a loss for words, so Sithlin walked past him and faced Merad.

“Go back to where you belong, maid. I don’t want a woman in my battalion,” he said and spat at her feet.

“I choose him as my second in command!” he added pointing at Jaithan. Part of the audience responded with tentative cheers.

Sithlin’s disrespect was the jolt that Merad needed. She stepped on the spit and turned her foot, like she was squashing a beetle.

“It will be my pleasure to defeat you tomorrow,” she said staring into his eyes. Her voice, suddenly liberated from all the years of uncertainty, resonated loud and clear in the arena.

His head recoiled back. Was that fear in his eyes?

Tauriel, the winner of the second last fight and commander of the side opposing Sithlin in tomorrow’s skirmish, stepped between them, the hint of a smile on his lips. “I’ll take her as my second!”  Hordun and Merad found Faelan pacing in her daughter’s room.

“Why?” she addressed them. Merad could clearly see the muscles of her jaws clenching under her fair skin. “You could have defeated that bastard. Why did you let him win?”

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“I did what was necessary,” Merad replied, her shoulder slumping as the adrenaline was leaving her body.

Hordun nodded. “They would never allow a woman to command a battalion. She would have been lucky to end up in a cell.”

Judging by her mother’s sudden pause, their words seemed to have stifled her anger.

“We discussed it this morning and decided that this was the best course of action,” Hordun added.

“But… You told me that only the commander is allowed to approach the God-King when the new battalion reaches the front,” Faelan replied. “Merad needs to get close to him, or it will be all for nothing.”

“Mother, you don’t have to worry,” Merad continued. “I will find a way.”

“War is messy business…” Hordun added. “Things happens on the battlefield.”

Faelan’s stare softened a bit, but her eyes were wet when she embraced Merad. “I’m sorry… I never meant for you to have to fight in a real war.”

“I know,” Merad said and all the feelings of uncertainty that she had just tamed in the arena started coming back. But she didn’t want to add to her mother’s worries, so she remained silent.

They stayed in each other’s arms, until Hordun laid his hands on their shoulders. The message was clear, it was time to go. Over the years, Faelan had periodically sneaked in at night to see her daughter during her training, but she was still officially banned from seeing Merad, and they couldn’t afford any more disturbance around her right now. She dried her eyes and caressed her daughter’s cheek.

“I shouldn’t be so hard on you,” she said, “and your father.”

“Father?” Merad turned to look at Hordun with new eyes.

“Yes, he sired all my children,” Faelan added, before turning away.

Merad didn’t know how to feel about that revelation. None of the Sacred Mothers knew who their father was, their conception was the fruit of a rotation of the retired veterans available to impregnate their mothers.

She shrugged as her mother spoke further. “Have you had any vivid dreams yet?”

Merad took a few seconds to shake her head, but when she did, she saw her mother’s shoulders become bowed, like they were bearing the weight of the entire world.  Walking towards Tauriel’s tent after another successful sortie, Merad was again pondering her dream the night before. It had started with a group of warriors, all women, armed with spears and bows, hiding in tall grass and covered in mud in the starless night. When a squadron of unsuspecting soldiers, wearing the God-King’s insignia, rode by, they ambushed them and easily dispatched them. She was woken up by the stone of her necklace, suddenly so hot that it almost burned her skin. It was the most lifelike dream she had ever had. Was that what her mother had referred to when they parted ways? Probably, but what was the dream’s meaning then?

Now at the tent, she saluted the two guards by the entrance and strode in. Tauriel was staring at the map of the war theatre unrolled on the table, drops of sweat dotting his forehead. She approached him and examined the updated state of the battle.

She couldn’t have taken part in formal strategic training like the other cadets, but Hordun had done the next best thing. Hordun had taught her while watching from afar all the military maneuvers taking place in the plains surrounding the city. He had explained the strategies employed, pointing out the Hybrid Fiction October 2020

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mistakes and the good decisions. Eventually, she had been the one doing the talking, describing exactly how the squadrons should have been positioned on the field to win. She had become an excellent tactician.

Merad’s thoughts went back to her father for a moment. It was still hard to think of Hordun as anything else but her heartless trainer, and she wondered why in all the years he had never mentioned that she was her daughter. Her conclusion was that it would have only got in the way of her training.

Merad chased that thought away and focused on the map again. Tauriel had devised a sound strategy, similar to the one employed by the other side, but their casualties doubled those of Sithlin’s army.

The reason was that the vast majority of the cadets of this year’s class had viewed themselves as inferior to Sithlin, fighting against him with the expectation of losing. The outcome of today’s scrimmage wasn’t decided by Sithlin’s strategic ability, just by his status among his peers.

But Merad couldn’t allow it. If her side lost, Sithlin would become commander of the Battalion and keep Jaithan as second in command. She would just be buried in the officers’ corps, in charge of a squadron, without a clear path to the promotion she needed to get close to the God-King. She thought about the warrior women in her dream, and a plan formed in her head.

“Commander,” she addressed Tauriel, “we are bleeding fast. Soon, we’ll be forced to surrender.”

“I see that, woman,” he replied, “but my strategy is correct, I can’t fight all the opposing soldiers by myself. If they could only see what an arrogant idiot Sithlin really is.”

Merad grinned. It was nice to see someone else not buying into the cult of their opponent’s ego.

“I have an idea, but I’ll need every soldier available,” she said.

Tauriel stared at her for a second. “I’m listening.”

Merad explained her strategy, and her commander stiffened. “It will never work. Our own soldiers have already given up.”

“Let me worry about that,” she said.

She turned to leave the tent.

“Wait! I’m coming with you,” Tauriel blurted out.

“You can’t, I need you to prolong the fight until the very end.”

The skirmish officially finished two hours after sunset, and she was going to need every minute to have a chance.

She saw his face droop as he realized that she was right. Their side’s strategy needed to change to the most conservative possible to buy her enough time and only the commander could give the orders.

Tauriel nodded, and she left heading to the staging area where the cadets back from a clash caught their breath before being redeployed.

“Soldiers!” she addressed them. “If you have half a brain, you can see that we are heading towards defeat.”

An equal number of curses and murmurs of agreement raised among their ranks.

“But, we still have a chance if you follow me-” “Why?” a soldier interrupted her. “What’s the point? We are all tired. Just go tell Tauriel to surrender, if you want to be useful, maid.”

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As all the others sneered at her, Merad closed in on the one who had spoken and clocked him on the face, sending him sprawling to the ground.

“You may not respect me as a woman, but you WILL respect my station as second in command.”

All the derogatory comments instantly stopped.

“But you may be right,” Merad added, “it looks like all you’re all in a hurry to go suck from Sithlin’s tits…”

She saw a few jolt up at her comment. Maybe there was still some pride left among this flock.

“But… There’s only what, one hundred of us here,” one of them said.

“It will be enough,” Merad said. “Start by taking off your armor.”

Many raised objections. Any blow to their naked skin, even with dull-edged weapons, would leave painful bruises and might crack bones.

“Once you are done, cover yourself with mud,” Merad continued ignoring the whiners, and pointing to a pit nearby.

In the following silence, she took off her own armor, revealing her womanly curves, then headed to the pit. When her form was half-slathered in mud, a few joined her, and eventually all did.

“Why the mud?” one asked.

“To conceal us in the low light of the sunset and disguise our smell from the horses.”

“Horses?”

The only soldiers with horses were the fifty mounted guards per side protecting the commanders.

None of the two sides had lost enough troops for them to get involved.

“Yes, we are going straight for Sithlin,” Merad confirmed. “The only victory left to us is to capture the enemy Commander.”

The audacity of her plan seemed to quell any objection.

Now covered in mud, they assumed a compact formation behind her and were able to slip by the enemy squadrons unseen, all the way to the base of the hill crowned by Sithlin’s tent. The guards formed two cordons, and a third ring formed by foot soldiers had been added below them. Sithlin had also realized that the only way for him to lose was to be captured and had been canny enough to add the extra protection.

“Divide the men into four groups,” Merad instructed her officers, “and attack simultaneously from four different directions. Once you engage, run away, luring as many of the enemy foot soldiers as possible in pursuit. Without armor, you are faster, so as soon as you gain enough ground hide in the bushes and ambush them. Take them out, then go back and do it again. We need to loosen the cordons as much as possible. All clear?”

The four mud-covered faces looked at each other, then one of them replied. “What about you?”

“I’m going for the biggest prize,” she said and headed up hill.

She hid behind the tree patch closest to the first cordon and waited.

Not long after her men had begun their attacks, tearing the infantry ring apart, Merad saw the opening she needed. She sneaked through and approached the horses up ahead. Soon, as she had hoped, the impatient officers of the mounted guard decided that they needed to help the infantry below them and ordered half of the riders to head downhill, leaving enough gaps for her to pass through the Hybrid Fiction October 2020

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middle ring, favored by the dimming light of the twin suns. The problem was the higher ring. Her soldiers weren’t enough to move up and engage it before the end of the scrimmage.

“Keep the line, you idiots!” another officer yelled riding past the bush she was hiding into, not happy with the loosening of the second ring.

Merad recognized Jaithan, the cadet that Sithlin had chosen to replace her as his second in command.

She followed him low to the ground, waiting for him to head back uphill once he had reigned back enough riders. She jumped on him as he was cutting through a small copse of trees halfway between the two upper rings. She pulled him off his horse and placed the dull blade of her sword on his neck.

“Sorry, but I’m going to need your armor,” she whispered in his ear, after removing his helmet and before sending him to sleep with a blow to the head. According to the rules, upon defeat he’d have to sit quietly for the rest of the scrimmage, but, without other witnesses, she couldn’t risk Jaithan to just run up to alert Sithlin. After all, if her little trick worked, he would be the one taking the blame.

Shortly after, she was riding up the hill on Jaithan’s horse, nodding to the salutes of the other soldiers, who didn’t seem to notice or care that that their second in command had lowered his helm to cover his face.

Two bored cadets were guarding the entrance of Sithlin’s tent. Merad dismounted and struck them both before they realized that she was too short to be Jaithan. They quietly sat on the ground.

When she entered the tent, Sithlin was pouring himself a drink with her back to her. Her entire being wanted to hit the back of his exposed head with all her strength. Instead, she lifted her helmet and coughed.

“What is it?”

He turned and froze.

“I’m here to claim my victory,” Merad said.

“How did you…” he started saying, then noticed her armor.

“Jaithan, stupid idiot.”

“You should have stuck with me,” Merad said.

Sithlin grinned then glanced at his sword, left by the entrance of the tent.

“Don’t even think about it,” she said, bouncing her weapon between her hands. “this blade may be dull, but it can still hurt.”

“Think about what you are doing,” he replied. “I’m clearly a better commander than Tauriel. Do you really want him to lead our battalion to war?”

“You make a good point,” she said. “But we both know who the better commander on the field was today.”

He clenched his teeth.

“Easy now, if I really wanted my side to win, I would have already struck you down.”

His eyes narrowed.

“I have a proposal,” she continued. “I drop my sword, and you take me prisoner, pretending that you defeated me once I entered your tent. Since I already let you win in the arena, nobody would have a problem believing it.”

Sithlin looked at her for a while. “And why would you want to be humiliated again?”

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“Because you will announce that Jaithan’s ineptitude almost lost your side the scrimmage, and that my intelligence and bravery need to be rewarded. You will choose me as your second in command for the battalion.”

“A maid? Never! If you want to be the second in command, just capture me and serve under that idiot of Tauriel.”

Time to stroke his ego again.

“That’s my fall back plan, if you prove too stubborn. But I have seen your influence among the cadets.

They revere you. I need them to accept a woman as second in command of their battalion. And I’ve a better chance of that happening under your command.”

Sithlin became pensive, but Merad knew exactly what he was planning.

“If you are pondering to agree now, renege just after I drop my sword, and keep Jaithan as second-” “After the way you fooled him? I’ll take Tauriel instead.”

“Well, I’d consider his personal ambitions as part of the equation.”

Sithlin eyes opened wide.

“The God-King would never accept a woman as commander of one of his battalions, so I’ll always be your second. Tauriel, on the other hand, will never stop trying to replace you. He’s a good strategist, and I’ve heard firsthand how much of an idiot he thinks you are.”

Hordun had told Merad that second officers taking command from their former superiors because the God-King wasn’t happy with their performance was a well-known fact among the cadets.

“Do we have an agreement?” Merad asked.

Sithlin nodded and she dropped her sword.  Departure day. The battalion, headed by Sithlin with Merad at his side, slowly advanced through the main avenue leaving the capital, lined up by citizens saluting the cadets heading to the front.

When they stopped in front of the stands occupied by the Sacred Mothers, Merad searched for Faelan’s face, but she couldn’t find her. Why wasn’t her mother there? Her due date was still a month away.

She noticed the Head Conscripter whispering in Relan’s ear before she took the central stage. The Head Mistress’s nodded and shot a deadly stare at Merad. Her heartbeat accelerated.

Relan began reciting the ritual blessing. “May good weather and the wisdom of the God-King-” “His perfection humbles us.”

“-accompany you in your long journey to the front.”

Her mouth curved in a pained expression.

“I can’t…” she resumed talking. “I can’t in good conscience allow this.”

Shocked ooohs raised from the other Sacred Mothers. Merad felt her stomach clench, dreading what was coming.

Relan’s eyes found Merad’s again. “As a maid, you are still part of the order and hence under my responsibility. If I let you go, I’d betray the destiny that the God-King-”

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“His perfection humbles us.”

“-had devised for you. You are to remain here in the capital and serve as helper to the Sacred Mother.”

“No!” Merad yelled. All the soldiers around her balked at her outburst.

The Head Conscripter stepped next to Relan. “Well, if this is the Order’s will, it needs to be respected.”

“I proved my right to become a soldier on the arena and on the battlefield!” Merad shouted, tensing every muscle in her body.

“It doesn’t matter!” Relan replied. “You are a woman, and your duty was decided at birth!”

“Commander Sithlin,” the Head Conscripter took over, “choose another second in command for your battalion. Maid Merad, please report immediately to the Order.”

Merad unsheathed her sword. “I’d rather die than waste my life as a maid! Maybe when the God-King learns how many of his precious cadets I’ve taken with me, he’ll realize what fools you all are.”

Sithlin and the closest soldiers surrounded her, weapons ready, while the guards nearby rushed to the scene.

“Not so fast!” the voice came from the farthest entrance of the stand. It belonged to Faelan, Merad’s mother.

She hobbled to Relan, helped by two maids. A third was behind her, carrying a big bundle of fabric in her arms.

“Faelan?” Relan addressed her. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think?” she replied, Merad could clearly see a smirk on her mother’s face. “As the headmistress of the Order of the Sacred Mother,” Faelan replied, “I’m here to fulfill my duty by giving my blessing to the departing cadets.”

“What?” Relan replied, her cheek blushing. “I’m Relan NINETEEN. It is my right to rule the council!

Even with your newborn, you are still Faelan Eighteen!”

“Am I?” she glanced at the woman behind her, who uncovered the top of the bundle.

Three small babies were peacefully sleeping in her arms.

Ooooh… the other mothers said in awe. Twins were extremely rare in the Order, triplets hadn’t been seen in generations. There was no known records of all male triplets.

“I’m Faelan TWENTY now!” Merad’s mother proclaimed, shoving Relan off the podium. She found her daughter’s eyes. Merad smiled back at her and sheathed her sword, as the shocked faces of the soldiers around her all blurred together in her mind.

Faelan cleared her throat before addressing the battalion and the people in the stands. “I can see doubts in all of you, honorable soldiers, and also you, my beloved sisters, and with reason. What Merad has accomplished seems to defy the very core of our sacred doctrine. But let me ask you something. If he disapproves of it, the God-King would have—” “His perfection humbles us.”

“- allowed me to give birth to triplets and take over as head mistress the day before my only daughter is leaving for the war front as an officer in his army?”

As Faelan’s stare swept like a cleansing summer rain over her audience, nobody, be they Sacred Mothers or elite soldiers ready to go to war, dared meet her eyes.

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“Surely in his infinite wisdom,” she continued focusing on Merad, who welcomed her mother’s stare like an impenetrable armor, “he would have known that I would have jumped to the opportunity to redeem myself for what I’ve done to you, my beloved daughter.”

After a few moments of silence, Faelan took a deep breath and completed her speech.

“Merad and all the rest of this year’s cadet class, I give you the blessing of the Order of the Sacred Mother. Make us all proud!”  In the previous fifteen generations, the God-King had conquered so much land that it took Merad’s battalion eight months to reach the war theater.

Once past the kingdom’s border, the well-tended landscape, made up of farms and small villages, gave way to a wasteland of misery and dishevelment.

Their ruler had stripped all the conquered nations of their resources to finance the war. The ablebodied men had been forced into his army, as complementary fodder to the elite troops birthed by the Sacred Mothers, leaving behind their families to scrounge just enough to survive on the depleted land.

Order was enforced by deploying some of the soldiers recruited from the neighboring countries, exploiting the centuries-old rivalries between the bordering populations.

As her battalion relentlessly trampled dusty roads, climbed mountain passes and crossed roaring rivers, only resting during the few stretches of sailing on massive transportation ships, that daily spectacle of misery and cruelty reinforced Merad’s drive. The God-King needed to be stopped.

It took three weeks for her to start bedding Sithlin.

The catalyst was an encounter with a contingent of veterans, on their way to the capital to become stallions for the Sacred Mothers, like her father had done two decades earlier. The exchange was brief, punctuated by sneered comments about how a woman won’t last a day on the battlefield. An old sergeant went as far as grabbing Merad in a bid of starting to cash in his procreation rights. She walked away before things got too awkward, but the scene had the consequence of inspiring an unpleasant incident later that night.

Two masked cadets broke into her tent. Luckily, Merad had spent extra time washing off the lingering sensation of the sergeant’s sweaty fingers on her skin and was still awake. A few well-timed punches and kicks dissuaded them, but she knew they would be back the next night, and in greater numbers.

When she finally fell asleep exhausted, another woman came into her dreams. She was wearing the white tunic of the Sacred Mother and was laying on a bed. A man, older but still in good physical shape, approached her as she undressed for him.

Merad cringed, anticipating what was going to happen. The Sacred Mothers always depicted the sex act as something unpleasant.

“Open your legs, stare at the ceiling, and wait until he’s finished,” was the advice repeated ad nauseam to her and the other girls about to join the order.

But Merad saw purpose on the woman’s face, her mouth curved into a mischievous smile as she pulled the man into her arms. What followed was the opposite of what Merad had been told.

Both bodies melted into each other, so effortlessly and naturally that every difference between men and women imposed by the God-King’s laws seemed not only nonsensical, but preposterous, and ultimately ridiculous.

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intimacy. But what struck Merad the most was the look on the man’s face. He was looking at the woman as equal.

Merad woke up shocked to the core. Who was this woman that had dared turn the values on which their society was built on their heads?

Since she was born, the stares men directed at her and the other women in the Citadel had been mainly of contempt, annoyance, presumption, superiority. The best they could have wished for had been amusement and lust, but never of respect for an equal, not even for a moment.

Merad had changed that, beginning with Hordun as she trained with him, and then the cadets she had beaten on the battlefield and the arena, up until the day they left, when she had seen in the eyes of Sithlin and that pompous bastard of a Head Conscriptor confusion, fear and ultimately resignation.

But she kept thinking back to what Hordun had said after she let Sithlin beat her in the trials. She had earned the right to be part of the army like any men had done in years past. To defy the God-King’s order, she had had to become one of those who enforced it. She had to become a man, one of them, for them to respect her.

The woman in the dream had done nothing of the sort. She was clearly still a Sacred Mother with her white tunic and femininity on full display. How had she made the man look at her as equal? Was the way she seemed to enjoy the sexual act part of it?

The following night, she went to see Sithlin. He was getting ready for bed, his upper body naked, perfectly formed from the years of training. She pushed the hate that she had for him out of her mind and tried to look at him the same way she had seen the woman in her dream look at her lover. She couldn’t deny a certain desire rising within her. Sithlin may have been as bad a product of their patriarchal society as any, but his body exerted an undeniable physical attraction on her.

Before he could protest, she kissed him. Sithlin froze at first, but Merad felt his muscles soften under his skin, together with the blocks built by the years of indoctrination. All his life, he had been told to focus on fighting ignoring anything else, including women, the prize after a lifetime of serving in the God King’s army, but all of that seemed to be fading away, as quickly as his hands were exploring her body.

Merad helped him match his desire with hers, mirroring the gestures of the Sacred Mother in her dream, and soon they too were moving like one single living being.

After, she eased herself into his arms. His reaction was awkward at first, but soon he seemed more comfortable embracing her. She told him about the attack from the other cadets in her tent, and Sithlin had the reaction Merad had been hoping for. The next morning, he launched an investigation and when the culprits were identified, whether they were actually guilty or not, he had them flailed. He also had the entire battalion march at double the speed for the next week, to make perfectly clear that any form of disrespect towards his second in command wouldn’t be tolerated.

Was Sithlin behaving that way because he cared about her? Or was he just looking after his new property?

Merad couldn’t know, but did it really matter? She enjoyed their secret sexual encounters, at least on a physical level, and Sithlin provided her safe passage all the way to the frontline.  When her battalion finally topped the last hill that separated it from their destination, Merad couldn’t help staring in awe. The massive encampment of the God-King’s army below them was effectively a moving city, each structure made of canvas and wood and built on wheels. At its core stood the tallest construction of all, the royal quarters.

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when a group of riders quickly approached them.

Merad recognized them immediately by their uniforms, the Generals in charge of the God-King’s army. Or so they wished. Hordun had told her about them, glorified errand boys, moving the battalions around the war theater strictly following the God-King’s orders. Puppets, whose strings were always firmly in their master’s hand. Her father knew, he had been one of them for many years.

They introduced themselves, names Merad didn’t make any effort to retain, addressing only Sithlin and reserving only stares of disdain for her.

“Commander, it’s time for this insubordination to end,” one of them said. “Reassign this woman to the support wagons and choose an apt second in command.”

Sithlin hesitated a second, but when Merad open her mouth to sneer back, he anticipated her.

“Is that an order?”

The General seemed taken aback.

“Well, yes… I suppose it is.”

“Because from what I’ve been taught, I’m expected to follow all directives from you when it pertains to battle tactics, but I’m the one solely responsible for the composition of my officers corps.”

Merad’s mouth curved in a smile in the following awkward silence.

“Unless of course,” Sithlin continued, “you’re simply conveying an order from the God-King himself…”

No ritual words followed, it seemed matters of religion were a bit looser on the front. “…but that is peculiar, as a simple courier would have sufficed.”

“How dare you disobey a direct order from your superiors?” the General tried.

“I didn’t think so,” Sithlin said, then turned to Merad. “Second in command Merad, please get us moving. I don’t want to make our ruler wait more than necessary.”

Merad nodded and turned her horse, but another General let his rage, clearly displayed by his red face, get hold of him.

“Fine, have it your way,” he yelled. “The God-King himself will put you and this wench back in your place.”

Sithlin didn’t even deign to answer, and the battalion began moving to reach the Royal Quarters.

Merad wondered once again about Sithlin’s motivations for defending her. Did he care about her?

And more importantly, was she starting to care for him? She chased that thought out of her head. Coming to her defense had probably been a way to scoff at the Generals, more to make it clear that he wasn’t just a junior commander ready to bend to their every whim than an indication of his feelings for her.

Once every squad was in their assigned position, Merad raised her stare to the highest balcony of the wooden palace. The Royal Guard, the elite of the elite of the army, stood on every flat surface of the massive construction.

The God-King stepped out of the shade.

“Welcome,” he said. “The reports speak of an exceptionally good cadet class this year.”

Merad felt a shiver going down her spine. The man didn’t look like much, short and wearing chain mail armor, well chiseled but nothing that would suggest his status. His voice, though, deep and calm, embodied the wisdom of a life lasting centuries and commanded instant awe and attention.

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“Commander!” he called.

Sithlin dismounted his horse, and made his way to him, under the stares of the guards. He kneeled in front of the God-King, who presented him with one of the swords made of the finest steel, reserved for battalion commanders.

“Make us proud,” he said. The very same words her mother used to send her battalion off, the last time Merad had heard her speak. The memory of her in the arena, holding herself up to the podium as if it was a raft in a storm after having given birth to her three brothers, was indelibly sculpted in her brain.

Merad exhaled as the God-King turned to walk back inside. It looked like the General’s words had only been an empty threat.

But then she saw the pompous soldier step forward from the back of the balcony and bow to the God-King. “Forgive me, Your Highness, but the second in command of the battalion is a woman. I would be remiss in my duties if I didn’t point it out.”

Merad’s suddenly allowed fear to creep into her body.

The God-King turned back, and his stare found her on her horse, in front of the battalion, in the spot vacated by Sithlin, still kneeling in front of him.

Their eyes met, and even from that distance, Merad was hit by their timelesso depth. She had never seen anything that black and still. Soon, her entire being was screaming for her to look away, but she didn’t. She felt the strength of her mother, and the women in her dreams come to her support.

Whatever the God-King was going to say to her, he would have to do it staring into her very soul.

But he said not a single word.

The God-King sustained Merad’s stare for a few moments, and then just walked away, without even acknowledging her presence. The General, who had directed his attention to her, snorted so loudly that Merad heard him from the ground. The knots in her stomach relented a bit, but that very tightness, as her relief twisted into anger, moved to her jaws and teeth, which clenched until they hurt.

The God-King had obviously decided that she was just another insignificant, low ranking soldier not worthy of his attention, but she fully intended to make him notice.  The opportunity came a few months later. The God-King’s war machine had been steadily advancing, annexing the people and cities they encountered with little effort. As soon as the governments of the invaded lands realized the size and might of their foe, they had no choice but to surrender. The God-King himself would spend a few days—heavily escorted—in the capital of the newly conquered country to lay down the new laws, and the army would move on, leaving behind enough soldiers to enforce the transition. The occasional nation too stubborn to comply was dealt with swiftly and shown no mercy.

Merad realized that things were about to change when the first reports about the Haiuns arrived. The scouts described them as fierce riders and fighters grouped in nomadic tribes roaming the steppes that were about to replace the gentle hills the army had been moving through. Rumors also spread among the soldiers about some kind of magic they used, connected to the realm of the dead.

The orders were straightforward. The tribes were to be pursued, cornered, and all enemies captured and moved into internment camps. Anyone resisting was to be slaughtered, with the exception of the shamans, the practitioners of the dark arts. They were to be taken alive and delivered immediately to the God-King.

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significant damage could be inflicted. If anything, the bigger casualties were always on the God-King’s side as the Haiuns were exceptional archers, able to hit their targets from a significant distance while galloping the other way.

To make things worse, when two of the more seasoned battalions managed to corner a tribe in a bog that made it impossible for the Haiuns to escape, only a few soldiers had managed to return alive. Sithlin’s recount to Merad, after he had been debriefed by one of the generals, had been horrifying.

The ambush had worked at first, with the Haiuns unable to maneuver as quickly in the muddy terrain, but suddenly the soldiers had started hallucinating. The survivors talked about loud, haunting noises, followed by mist shaping into dark figures identical to the enemy warriors. The inability to distinguish between real and illusionary opponents had resulted in a quick slaughter of most of the two battalions.

The prevalent belief was that they were the ghosts of the fallen Haiuns, coming back to help their descendant dispatch their new enemies.

“We can beat them,” Merad told Sithlin, after one of their secret encounters.

“How?” “I take a few hundred soldiers and hide in the marshland. You use the rest of the battalion to chase the Haiuns to us. We jump them before the shamans can use their magic.”

She felt his body tense under hers. His ego raising his ugly head again as she was suggesting a tactic similar to the one that she had used to surprise his side in the skirmish after the trials.

“We still won’t be able to catch them,” he protested.

“We just need to capture one of the shamans alive. Think how grateful the God-King would be when you personally deliver him.”

At the mention of gaining status with their ruler, Sithlin’s muscles loosened.

Merad often wondered if there could be true feelings between the two of them, but the fact that the very notion of romance was so extraneous to her didn’t help. She thought she had seen glimpses of true love between her mother and her father the few times they had been altogether, and in her errands outside the Citadel as a child, she had run into seemingly happy couples, but had no idea how to compare any of that with what she had with Sithlin.

It took them a week of constant scouting to get into striking distance of a Haiun tribe. Merad suggested attacking just before dawn, so that there would be enough light to identify the shamans but not enough that they would be seen approaching.

When she lay down by one of the campfires to catch a few hours of sleep before the assault, another vivid dream came to her. In the darkest of nights, she saw another woman in combat, defeating foes who were bigger and stronger. They couldn’t see her in the almost pitch black, but her blades always found their targets. Merad’s consciousness drifted into her body and she realized that her advantage was in her eyes, which were able to pierce through the dark like it was day.

She woke up wondering at the dream’s significance but did not dwell. The squads selected for the ambush were waiting for her, their bodies already covered in mud. She led them to the bog she had picked for the assault and smiled when she saw them disappear among the long canes jutting from the shallow pond. The retreating Haiuns would part around them like a river streaming past a protruding rock, leaving themselves vulnerable to an attack at their core, where the shamans rode.

Soon, the screams of the assault on the tribe’s camp reached them, and the ground under her feet started to rumble, gaining in intensity. Sithlin had done his job; the Haiuns were retreating at full speed in their directions.

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“On my signal!” she ordered as soon as she saw the riders in the distance. The survivor of the previous battles had described the shamans as older men, wearing tall hats made of intertwined leaves and riding slender horses bred for speed, not for fighting. Against the light of dawn, she saw two hats bobbing, rising just above the galloping Haiuns, riding at the center of their formation.

She grabbed her long pike with both hands and tensed her muscles.

“Now!” she ordered after the first wave passed the bog. Her soldiers bolted out of the high canes, toppling enough Haiuns for her to slip through to the approaching shaman.

Merad saw the fear in his face as she impaled his horse with her pike before diving out of the way.

The animal tumbled to the ground, catapulting the man forward. When she reached him, she saw his neck bent at an unnatural angle. She swore and searched for the second one in the chaos of the battle.

The Haiuns had grinded their retreat to a halt and had surrounded Merad and her men, but Sithlin and the bulk of the battalion had caught up with them, and now outnumbered the tribe.

Merad found the second shaman protected by a circle of Haiuns. He was taking out something from under his baggy mantle and making ample gestures with his hands.

“Magic!” she yelled. “Stop the shaman!”

The soldiers around her heard her call and joined her desperate charge, but the Haiuns held their ground. Merad began to hear high pitched voices swirling around her. The terror on her men’s faces told her that she wasn’t the only one.

Suddenly a dark figure, holding a sword, jumped in front of her out of nowhere. Her blade cut it in half, turning his shape into thick smoke, but two more replaced it. She took a quick look around and saw many more Haiuns than she remembered.

In an instant, the two enemies facing her became four and surrounded her. Merad assumed a defensive stance, but a cold realization filled her body. Without being able to distinguish which of the menacing blades had the power to deliver a fatal blow, she wouldn’t last long.

Was this how her mission entrusted to her by her mother was going to end? Was the God-King destined to rule forever? Then suddenly the world around her brightened as if the twin suns had shifted from just above the horizon to over her head. The battlefield unrolled in front of her with exceptional clarity and, more importantly, the outlines of the shapes of three of the four enemies against her were blurrier.

She parried the lunge of the fourth one, counterattacking with a fatal blow, letting the rest of them slash through her. Their swords whispered to smoke as they touched her body.

As she caught her breath, her mind went back to the woman in her dream. Merad’s sharper eyesight felt exactly like the one she had experienced through the woman’s eyes. Renewed hope filled Merad, but her elation was short lived as she searched for more targets. Her companions were falling all around her, still unable to tell the difference between real and insubstantial foes.

She needed to do something, or she would soon be the only one of her battalion standing. Thanks to her enhanced eyesight, she spotted the Shaman in the chaos of the battle and fought to him. She grabbed his leg and pulled him from his horse. When a deep and guttural scream rose from his mouth, she noticed a bright yellow hue covering his teeth.

Merad hit him in the head with the blunt side of her sword until he stopped moving. With one hand, she searched his ample clothing until she found several pouches attached to his belt. She cut one open, and the fine powder inside dispersed in the wind. A pungent smell of dried flowers violated her nostrils, and more blurry warriors appeared around her as two real ones rushed to the Shaman’s aid. Merad danced through the ghosts until her blade found their flesh. They died with a baffled look on their faces.

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Was the Haiuns magic just the effect of hallucinogenic plants? But then how come they weren’t affected by it? She looked deeper into the Shaman’s clothes and found packets of tied leaves of the same color that she had seen in the shaman’s mouth.

She chewed one furiously and in a matter of seconds, many of the Haiuns disappeared from the battlefield.

“Here!” she called to the soldiers around her. “Chew this!”

They did, relief appearing on their mud-covered faces.

“Take more!” she said, distributing the leaves. “Hand them out!”

Soon the tide of the battle changed in their favor, and only few Haiuns managed to get away in a hasty retreat. Merad tied up the unconscious shaman and began moving through the battlefield, looking for Sithlin. She found him off to the side of the battle, surrounded by the bodies of his guards. He was facing only two Haiuns, but his eyes were darting around like there were dozens. He had moved back when the battle had turned ugly, but the spores had reached him too and none of the other soldiers had been close enough to hand him the yellow leaves.

She rushed to help him, but when their eyes locked, she forced herself to stop. His mouth opened in a desperate plea. Merad didn’t move, her insides turning into knots. The captured shaman meant an audience with the God-King, but only the commander of the battalion would deliver the prisoner.

When the swords of the two Haiuns came together for the fatal blows, Merad diverted her eyes. As she chased down and dispatched Sithlin’s killers, tears rigged her face.  Only about half of the battalion made it back to the God-King’s encampment, led by Merad, carrying the tied up and gagged shaman on her horse. She was so tired that she caught herself looking forward to the comfort of another night in Sithlin’s arms, before reality set in, his slaughter flashing in her mind.

Word that their battalion had defeated the Haiuns had preceded them, and she found all the Generals waiting for her at the entrance of the encampment, ready to squeeze out of Sithlin how they managed.

When they saw Merad with the commander’s steel sword at her waist, she saw their faces twist. They approached her escorted by a squadron of the Royal Guards in full combat gear. Clearly, they intended to take the credit—and the Shaman—away from her.

“If you can please make way,” Merad started, “I have an appointment with the God-King.”

The same General who had tried to stop her before pushed his horse forward. “No, we will bring the prisoner to him.”

He gestured to the closest guards.

Merad unsheathed her new sword and her men stepped between her and the approaching guards without her having to utter a word. Merad looked at their faces, a mix of those she had led personally, still covered in mud, and the ones who had attacked the Haiuns’ camp commanded by Sithlin. They would die before letting the General discount their victory in the eyes of their ruler.

“We lost our leader and half or our men to capture the Shaman,” Merad said. “No one else but I, the commander of the battalion, will deliver the prisoner to the God-King. We owe it to our fallen.”

The General’s face turned red. “This is insubordination! I’ll strip off your rank and have you hung!”

As soon as he said that, Merad’s soldiers unsheathed their swords. The Royal Guards adjusted nervously on their horses.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Cultrera

“When Gods Sleep”

25

“You’re welcome to try,” she replied calmly, gesturing the battalion to move. “We’ll be at our quarters for some well-deserved rest. If the God-King wants to interrogate the shaman, he knows where to find us.”

The summons came shortly after.

She had done it. The next morning Merad would be face-to-face with the God-King himself, but what then? All her mother had told her was to get close to him, no mention of what to she was supposed to do once she was.

When she finally fell asleep exhausted, another dream came to her aid. A woman, scrambling through a narrow cave, so desperate to run away from what was chasing her that she ignored the cuts and bruises on her body.

No, Merad realized, it wasn’t desperation, it was determination.

In her dream, the woman stumbled into a larger cavern. In the center was a massive stone faintly glowing purple with silver streaks swirling through it. She hit it with her knife until a sliver the size of an acorn broke off.

It was the stone in the necklace her mother had given her. The woman grabbed the sliver with her empty hand, just as her pursuers poured the cave, led by the God-King, holding a torch. She charged him, her knife aiming for his heart, but before she could stab him, one of his men moved him out of the way and deflected her blow.

Merad woke up screaming in pain. She was clutching the stone of her necklace in the same way as the woman in the dream, and it was burning. She released it, staring at the seared skin of her palm while the sting faded away and a newfound calm filled her.

The next morning, she entered the Royal Quarters surprised to see none of the Royal Guards around.

She found the God-King sitting on his throne, dressed in well-cut, plain clothes and alone. He looked tired, almost paper-thin, except for the infinite depth of his black eyes. She pushed the shaman, bound and gagged, to fall at his feet and waited.

“A woman…” he said after staring at her for a while, and Merad felt the oppressive weight that his voice was able to command. “Maybe I’ve been wrong all these years.”

Merad thought she hadn’t heard correctly, but the God-King continued. “Centuries thinking that only men and their strength could help my quest, and when we face the first real challenge in fifteen generations of war, a woman solves it.”

He sighed. “So, tell me. How does the magic of the Haiuns work? Do they really raise the dead to fight at their side?”

Merad threw at her feet one of the pouches and a bundle of yellow leaves she took from the shaman.

“They spread hallucinogenic spores over the battlefield. The Haiuns chew those leaves to remain immune.”

A bitter smile appears on his face. “A trick… No magic piercing the veil separating life from death.”

The God-King rose from his throne and moved toward her, lost in thought. When his foot crushed the dry leaves, Merad grabbed the stone under her armor, unsheathed her concealed knife and plunged it in his heart effortlessly.

The blow didn’t affect him. When his eyes lifted to meet hers, there was no fear or surprise in them.

Just sadness.

“Child…” he whispered, gently pushing Merad’s blade out his chest.

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Cultrera

“When Gods Sleep”

26

He sat back on his throne as the wound in his chest closed. Merad felt her legs buckle and realized that the stone in her hand was as cold as ice.

“Don’t you think I would have done it myself, if it was that easy?” the God-King said.

What? Merad let her arms go slack, and her knife clanged as it hit the stone ground.

The God-King grinned. “You and I are not that different, you know? Both wasting our life in a helpless task… Why do you think I keep expanding my empire? Conquering new lands and enslaving more people?”

“Lust for power? Ego?” Merad offered. She had never wasted too much time thinking about what drove the God-King. He was the man who had built the prison for the women—her mother—in the Citadel. Could his motivation be any different from the men he had left guarding it?

He shook his head. “What if I told you it was for love?”

For the second time since entering the cavernous throne room, Merad thought she had misheard the God-King.

“Since I was a child, all I wanted was to be left alone. I wanted to be a scholar, a poet, not a king. But when my father couldn’t have another heir, no matter how many women he screwed, I was stuck with the throne.

“The arranged marriage I was forced into seemed another wall built to keep me inside a life I had never wanted. Instead it paved the way for the best years of my life. I’m not sure if it was chance or my father was smarter than I’d ever given him credit for, but my Queen…”

The God-King paused for a few moments. Was the pitch black in his mesmerizing eyes softening? “… was everything I could have wished for. She took over the governance of the realm and ushered an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity for our people, leaving me to my studies and creative endeavors. We complemented each other in ways I could have never imagined possible.

“But then I stopped aging, and she eventually died…”

Merad stood silent as the most powerful being who had ever lived seemed on the verge of tears.

His head jerked back up as his eyes returned to being the blackest holes Merad had ever seen.

“Would me dying reunite me with her? Even I don’t know that, but at the very least it will cease the pain of life without her.”

Merad felt the blood drain from her face as she realized what the God-King really wanted.

“All I want is to die, to finally be at peace…”

Peace… That single word turned Merad’s confusion into anger. She had seen firsthand the unending amount of misery the God-King’s personal quest had caused.

“Peace? You pursue peace by enslaving your own people and use them to wage war?” she blurted out.

“Believe me, the irony is not lost on me.”

“But… All this pain you are causing, is it worth it?”

His head snapped up. “Why should I be the only one to suffer?” The God-King sighed. “Besides, what choice do I have? I’ve been alive for three centuries and every day I wonder. Why me? Am I really the only one in the entire world destined to forever live a life that I never wanted? I keep expanding my empire, hoping that I find something able to kill me past the next border. Obviously, the Haiuns and their

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“When Gods Sleep”

27

hallucinogenic powder is not the answer. Merad the maid, tell me. Why can’t I just die?” he pleaded.

Give him what he wants, my child. Faelan’s voice exploded in her head as the stone in her hand warmed.

“Mother?” Merad whispered.

She opened her hand. The stone was shining with a bright light.

The God-King’s eyes widened as Faelan’s voice echoed in the throne room. “We are here to liberate you.”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“We are all the women you left behind.”

Many more voices joined hers, dozens, hundreds, thousands. “We lived and died for this moment.

Every time one of us left this world, a sliver of her soul came into this stone to be able to witness our moment of reckoning.”

“My dreams…” Merad said.

“Yes, whenever you needed us, we came to your aid.”

A single voice talked next. “Remember the night before the skirmish in the trials? You saw me, Tearin, the first of our lineage. I was one of the original Sacred Mothers and a fierce warrior. I used the mud trick in many ambushes. It was also me last night, in that dark cave, where I chipped the stone from the Mother Rock before I was captured.”

“And when you needed to bring Sithlin by your side I came to you,” another voice rang out. “I am Genian, your great-great-great-grandmother. I always enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh, and I’ve never been afraid to use my body to trick men into improving the living conditions of the Sacred Mothers. It was through my doing that the Sacred Mothers have access to art and the joyful life we live before our first blood.”

“I’m Lunian,” yet another voice chimed in. “I was forced into the Sacred Mothers after the God-King defeated my people in the caves of Tamaral. The night vision I bestowed on you is not uncommon among my people.”

Merad suddenly shivered. “Mother? Why are you here too? Did you…”

“Yes,” Faelan answered gently, “giving birth to your baby sister, a few hours ago. But do not grieve as it was my destiny.”

Merad’s stopped breathing as her vision blurred. How could that be? Was her mother really dead?

“It’s time. Give him the stone…” Faelan added, bringing Merad back from her desperation.

“Why?” the God-King asked.

“To give you the peace you have sought for so long,” Faelan’s voice replied. “Don’t be afraid, my beloved…”

The God-King kneeled in front of Merad, his face looking hesitant, but hopeful. In the light of the stone, Merad saw on the God-King’s face a glimpse of her father’s proud stare after she beat him in one of their sparring sessions, followed by Tauriel’s surprise after she told him about her plan to win the scrimmage. After that, the Head Conscriptor’s defeated look after Faelan blessed her the day she left for war, then Sithlin’s plead for her help when he was about to be cut down by the Haiuns, and finally the red-faced General’s frustration after her entire battalion came to her defense. All her victories eased the despair she felt at her mother’s passing, giving her the strength to complete her mission.

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Cultrera

“When Gods Sleep”

28

Merad dangled the stone above the God-King’s cupped hands, but a doubt crept into her mind. Her entire life’s purpose would soon be gone with the God-King, and without Faelan’s guidance, what was she supposed to do next?

“What about me?” she asked. “What is my destiny?”

“Come back home. You and your father Hordun will usher a new era of peace. One ruled with all our wisdom by your baby sister.”

Clinging to her mother’s last words, Merad dropped the necklace go. The God-King closed his fingers around the stone. His skin started to parch, as his hair greyed and thinned. His muscles withered away, but just before the skull surfaced under his wilting skin, Merad saw a grateful smile curve his lips. His body turned into fine dust, dispersed by a sudden gust of air, his royal garments deflating to the floor. The stone was nowhere to be found.  Afelis? Domaru called waking up.

I’m here, my dear, she replied.

I’m so sorry…

Don’t be.

I thought I could fix it… I thought being immortal would make him see past his own existence and understand the greater picture.

I’m as guilty as you. I left part of myself in the purple rock, too afraid to let our children go.

Domaru felt shame, another new feeling. But you were right, they were going to ruin the planet.

No, I wasn’t. My obsession for the safety of our children took over my entire consciousness. You saved me.

Domaru couldn’t believe her words, How? Afelis pulled him gently out of the center of the binary stars and towards the planet.

When the part of you in the immortal human touched the sliver of me in the stone, it freed me.

Without your intervention I would have slept forever guarding our offspring

Domaru thought for a moment during which they saw their creation begin the journey back to the beautiful balanced world they had created with all species living in harmony again.

See? Afelis added. They are doing it themselves. We need to trust them.

Domaru realized that she was right. We created them and helped them grow but we need to let them go.

Afelis overlapped Domaru, and two moved away together.

Soon they were travelling through the Primordial Cosmos again.

There were so many more worlds to build, so much more life to create, nurture, and set free.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

SIGHISOARA 3.0

By Russell Hemmell

Lugubrious piano music fills the silence of the castle like liquid gold pouring into a crucible. A mane of black hair falling on her face, white-waxed cheeks, bluish lips showing blade-like fangs, Mircalla tilts her head and crosses the sombre hall with an artfully slow pace. Her prey is lying on the couch, looking asleep, even though Mircalla knows she’s not: the movement of the woman’s chest peeking out of the elegant red dress is evident, laboured almost. Always a telling sign that the person is well aware of what’s going on. And awaiting what’s coming next.

Showtime. Mircalla extends her hands and grabs the woman’s shoulders, lifting her from the couch, and, without wasting valuable time, stabs her canines deep into the quivering carotid artery of the neck.

The woman jolts up, screaming out loud but making no efforts to free herself, while Mircalla serenely continues feeding on her.

After a last, satisfying slurp, Mircalla lets go, and the woman falls back on the couch with a resounding thud, returning to the previous pose of reckless abandon. Then, after a minute or so, she stands up, collects an expensive-looking scarf from the floor, and wraps it around her wounded neck. “When customer service told me Mina Harker was busy elsewhere I almost cancelled my session. I’m happy now I have not.” She looks at Mircalla with an appreciative stare, lingering on the curve of Mircalla’s breasts for a few seconds. “It’s not just for the high view from Poenari Fortress that one drives 30 miles into the middle of nowhere, you know?”

Mircalla knows, of course. Why else would she dress with those transparent, silky gowns that leave nothing to the clients’ imagination? Even when her twin sisters –Carmilla and Millarca- are booked elsewhere and she has to perform alone, she has never disappointed. She turns her head towards the door, blinks, and two seconds after a small goblin, clad in a purple and green cloak, enters the hall, fetching the client a glass of a bubbling liquid. The woman snatches it from the creature’s paw without even glancing twice at that strange-looking servant.

“Glad I was up to the task,” Mircalla says, without displaying any sign of genuine enthusiasm. She

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“Sighisoara 3.0”

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points at the huge, glass-stained window that opens on the woodland. “The management would certainly like to hear about it. The fortress is a recent addition; a few months ago, you could glimpse at a remake of the entire 14th-century Sighisoara -houses, barns, and churches, too.”

“Really?” The woman says with a disinterested expression while she continues sipping her drink.

“Really.” Mircalla goes to the window, her eyes following the graceful revolutions of a golden eagle that circles high in the sky. Differently from most of the attractions, the predator is a real, if geneticallyenhanced, bird. Aquila chrysaetos. Its ancestors used to nest only in the Carpathians. Not that the visitors can spot the difference from the native eagles. “But then, architects decided a pristine Carpathian-style forest was more effective. They built the castle compound, added the forest, and only left those sparse houses you can see from the East Wing.” She makes a pause, pulling her long hair back and adjusting the laces of her blouse. “Leave feedback about that, too, if you feel so inclined. We’re always interested in the clients’ experience.” She heads toward the huge wooden door.

The woman shrugs, following Mircalla toward the exit. “My take, sweetie? It’s the quality of the fangs and the strength of the suction that matter in this business. Of course, that delightful white-washed skin makes it sexier. And ramparts and portcullis and all that jazz, sure…but woods or some rotten medieval rooftops? An utter waste of money. Just saying.”

Mircalla makes a face but the client doesn’t pay attention. She goes away and the door closes behind her with a muffled noise.

Tell it to the architects, lady.

Mircalla sits down on the couch and makes a gesture towards the huge oak cupboard at the wall. A narrow compartment opens, and a slender girl comes out. Sneakers, jeans, and a loose shirt, she looks completely out of character in the medieval-style castle where Mircalla spends her days and nights, with its abundant drapery in black satin, its candelabra, its bronze mirrors and couches that seem coming straight from Vlad the Impaler’s times.

The woman -at a closer look she proves older than seems- sits nearby and takes out a small 3D recorder from her small belt-purse. “Jane Miller, from Extreme Entertainment, reporting from Cyber-Vamp Sighisoara, otherwise known as CyV 3.0.”

She moves it up and down, waving the small, red blinking cube in the air, to capture smells and other sensorial details for her reports.

“The Cyber-Vamp start-up opened two years ago and has gone through three iterations in less than two years. CyV 1.0 was set in a fictional San Francisco’s downtown, namely, St. Martin Hotel on Market Street. The second - CyV 2.0- was in equally fictional Paris, Palais Garnier, which I had the pleasure to visit and that looks way better than this rather uncouth supposed improvement of the whole concept-” Then her attention shifts to Mircalla, who has been looking at the reporter like a reptile stares at the fly buzzing around its tail.

“How long have you been doing it?” she asks, a polite tone but an inquisitive look.

Mircalla’s face doesn’t change. She stretches her legs and caresses her hair. “635 days, four hours.

Straight out of the factory.”

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Hemmell

“Sighisoara 3.0”

32

“No other entertainment parks?” There’s a slight tone of surprise in the reporter’s voice.

“We’ve been designed for this particular job, you see.” Her eyes glint up. “People who want to run away from zombies won’t appreciate a creature you can’t kill with rifles and that makes a bid for your neck instead.”

“How many customers have you serviced?”

“A total of 5,317, about 53% of them in CyV 2.0. Paris proved the most popular, as you have just said.”

Jane Miller gives an almost imperceptible nod. Almost, because nothing escapes Mircalla’s biotronich sensors. She’s made like that, to read human emotions and act in kind.

“So why was it discarded if it was so successful?”

Mircalla smiles. Her eyes wander around the hall, studying the decorations, searching in her stored memories flashes of the Paris iteration. How to explain to Jane Miller that there were too many dead bodies floating on the duplicated Seine River by the palace? The whole CyV concept – an attraction park with a real bite experience by otherwise fake cyborg vampires- proved a tad too popular among the clients, who, after a few times, developed a strange devotion to their dark servants-masters, artificial or not. “The architects decided that the kind of customers VyC 2.0 attracted were not what they wanted for the theme park.”

“Why? Not rich enough?”

“Among other things.”

That’s only half true. Some of them were indeed. But, once the brand name had become famous, Paris 2.0 began attracting a crowd much bigger than the selected few, and not just the super-rich it was supposed to service. To the point that, when running out of money, many executives instead of renouncing to their beloved VyCs, adopted extreme measures. Kidnapping a cyborg was one. It happened a few times, and a SWAT team had to break in and rescue the workers (artificial persons do have rights, including to police protection). Such a bloody mess.

Suicide was another. Very much in kind, Mircalla thinks. Her twin Carmilla had already caused a few broken hearts and a couple of slit wrists. She has no doubt it’s going to happen again, different location or not.

“I’m not sure shedding Paris for this… new version was a smart choice.” The reporter throws a spiteful glance at the candelabra in the nearby corner and the fleeting shadows on dark-wooden soil. “I’m even amazed you have any customers at all. This place is so off the beaten track…unfeasible for a weekend. And you know what? You have gone a bit too real here. I couldn’t find anything in the range of miles, not even for a quick sip. What’s the aim, to them to come here dying of thirst? I thought it was you who was supposed to drink out of your clients, not the other way ‘round.”

Mircalla smiles, but with fangs like hers, it looks like the snarl of a hyena.

“Sighisoara is not San Francisco or Paris.” She blinks again and the goblin gets back into the hall, this time fetching red wine on fancy crystal glasses. “A drink, Mrs Miller? In this way, you can also write about this part of the service, too. Of course, CyV 3.0 sports no French wines, or Californian, for what that matters. Hungarian tokay is pretty good, though. 98% of the customers rated it five stars-”

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Hemmell

“Sighisoara 3.0”

33

But the reporter isn’t listening now. “A goblin? Oh my God, this ruins it all.” She glares at the little creature, who takes a step back with a fearful expression. “There were no goddamn, filthy goblins in Bram Stoker’s book.”

And neither was I, Mircalla replies mentally. I’m Sheridan Le Fanu’s creation, you obnoxious braindead biospecimen.

When she was briefed about Mrs Miller’s visit, Mircalla was not enthusiastic. Nobody asks for biteworkers’ opinions, unfortunately, and even less gives them a choice. And yet, she’s proving even more irritating than expected. What a startling lack of culture; a few major fantasy board games had goblins and vampires alongside the other demonic creatures, when not goblin vampires altogether. The reporter has not done any homework before accepting the assignment.

“I was sent here to witness and report on a real vampire experience, and this is nothing in kind.”

Mircalla looks at the reporter’s contemptuous grimace. She could also observe that, as far as logic goes, cyborgs were remarkably absent from any of the hugely successful vampire blockbusters the twentieth century was so full of. So much of a success that, in a late twenty-first century where people started to manufacture anything the fancy takes them, the request for vampires had been too high to ignore. Lacking real undead, they went for the synthetic ones, endowing them with powerful enough AIs to send off spaceships to Alpha Centauri. The CyV concept was born.

“I want to speak to the management,” Mrs Miller keeps ranting.

Mircalla, Fourth Generation CyV from New Aberdeen Factory Complex, sighs. You can manufacture anything, but not bestow intelligence or basic logic on humans who are devoid of it. A noble mission for the next century. She sends the goblin away, aware that the incident has left the poor creature sad and telling her telepathically everything is going to be fine.

She flashes a suave smile at the reporter. “If you want a real experience, why don’t you try it by yourself?”

“I’m not into women,” the woman replies primly. “Not even for a bite.”

“I was actually thinking of somebody else.” Mircalla points to a door at the opposite end of the hall.

One that’s locked up. “That’s our resident Lestat in there. He’s by far the most requested by the clients, even more than the world-famous Geraldine and Claudia. You’ll understand the reason when you see him: Ann Rice’s original was not as charming as he is.”

Jane Miller hesitates for a moment and Mircalla bends toward her, whispering at her ear, “You’re not afraid, are you?”

That’s all it takes. The reporter stands up, put the tiny red box back in her purse, and walks away towards the door, which Mircalla unlocks at once.

Mrs Miller goes in.

Mircalla extends her long legs on the couch. She picks up the glass the reporter has refused and starts counting out loud. “1, 2, 3…”

She has told the truth. Lestat is indeed the most requested among the cy-vamps. Clients go stark raving crazy for his long ash-blond locks, the glint in his ice-blue eyes, the nasty curve of his sensual lips.

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Hemmell

“Sighisoara 3.0”

34

What’s not to like? Until one month ago, Lestat malfunctioned, and instead of just drinking the regulatory amount of blood, he sucked the unlucky customer dry, killing him on the spot. Since then, he has been in lock-down, awaiting repairs. Oh well. “…21, 22,23-” A deafening scream resounds across the castle, covering up the classical music of the piano.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

THE VENGEANCE OF HALLOWTIDE

By Paul R. Hardy

30th October 1915 The sun has long since set, and Londoners are desperate to be home before the clocks strike twelve and the dead start screaming for Hallowtide. But it's already too late to cross the river at Tower Bridge. Two women in long coats climb the stairs from the bank to the approach road only to find the police hefting a barricade across the carriageway, forcing coaches and wagons to back up while their horses whinny in the chill air.

The women duck behind the railings before the police spot them and watch as a cab driver high atop his hansom yells that it's too bloody soon and the coppers ain't got no damned right. “They're distracted,� says Della, the younger of the two women, narrowing her eyes beneath a red mushroom hat as the cab driver jumps down from his seat, horsewhip in hand. "We should get going before they see us."

"Not yet," says Emmeline, grey wisps of hair straggling from beneath an old Salvation Army-style bonnet. Della towers over her by more than a head but still defers to the older woman as they watch the Hybrid Fiction October 2020

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“The Vengeance of Hallowtide”

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cab driver advancing on a policeman at the barricade. The constable orders him back, but the cabbie won't budge. Coachmen and carters leave their vehicles to join him. The rest of the police rush forward to form a line.

"Now! Go!" cries Emmeline in a sharp whisper.

They dash out from the steps with their shawls flapping around their shoulders, unseen by all, sprinting for the bridge as fast as ankle boots will allow— Right into the path of a burly sergeant coming back up the road from the bridge.

"Oi! You two! You can't cross here!" he cries through his bushy moustache, blocking their path with outstretched arms. "The bridge is raising any second! Don't you know it's Hallowtide?"

Emmeline clutches Della's arm protectively while the taller woman stares around, suddenly wide-eyed and stupid. “Oh, but my daughter's sick," pleads Emmeline, in the anxious tones of a respectable matron voice. "She's sensitive, I have to get her home before midnight—" "Well go round, for heaven's sake! London Bridge isn't far—" "There's no time!" cries Emmeline, words tumbling from her mouth. "The driver left the tram at Aldgate and the Tube's shut down, so we had to walk and now it's too late. We'll never make it home before midnight if we go all that way. You've got to let us pass. She's sensitive. She'll go mad if she's out of doors when it starts—" Della gasps in sudden pain, falling to her knees and clutching her hat, crumpling the cloth flowers pinned to its side.

"What is it, my love?" asks Emmeline.

"I hear them, mother—they're screaming inside the engines—" She stares down at the cobbled road with desperate eyes, tears threatening to streak her face. "The dead are screaming!"

"I told you!" says Emmeline. "She's sensitive!"

"Well, no wonder," says the policeman, rubbing his temples. "The bridge engine's right beneath the road... Must be starting up..."

Della snarls back at him. "Aye, the bridge engine and ship engine and train engine—and power stations, too! All the dead bound in engines to drive the world, and I hear them, I hear them, they're crying out for Hallowtide..."

"There's no danger to the living, miss," says the policeman, blinking. "They're shutting all the numenic engines down for the holiday. That's why the bridge is raising..."

She only cries out louder: "Can't you hear them screaming for vengeance? For making them slaves, for keeping them from Heaven?"

"Come now, miss... They're naught but common criminals... Sent to the engines from the gallows—" "Can't you hear them shrieking?" screeches Della, the pitch of her voice piercing his ears almost as much as the cries of the dead.

"No, my love, I cannot," says Emmeline as she gathers the girl in her arms, and then looks up at the Hybrid Fiction October 2020

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sergeant. "But you can."

"There's many hear it this time of year—" "Then you know she'll never make it home in time if she has to go all the way round London Bridge!"

The policeman takes a breath and gathers himself to make objections. But just then a whip-crack comes from up the road as drivers push back against the line of police. It's no more than a scuffle now, but it'll be a riot soon enough.

"Go on, then," he says. "You'll have to climb the tower and use the walkway. Tell the lookout Sergeant Atwell said to let you pass."

Emmeline breaks into a beatific smile. "Bless you, sergeant! Bless you!"

"Just be off with you," he says, heading past them. "Go, before I change my mind!"

Emmeline pulls Della to her feet and hurries her on towards the tower. Once out of earshot, she whispers: "Don't be laying it on so thick, for heaven's sake!"

"I'm not laying it on!" mutters Della through gritted teeth. "They're already waking up. You don't know how they suffer in those damned engines—I could strangle the bastards that put them there!"

"And we'll make an end of it yet, but we've still the sentry to deal with. Keep walking, for heaven's sake."

They reach the north tower just as deafening foghorns announce the bridge lift. The central span breaks open as the bascules raise before the women, cutting the road in two. They enter the tower and make the long climb up the winding stairs within echoing stone walls, only stopping for rest when they reach the exit to the walkways at the very top.

Della pauses with her hand on a wall, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths.

"Do you still hear them?" asks Emmeline.

"I can manage," says Della. "What about that sentry?"

Emmeline peeks round the stonework to check the twin walkways that run between the two towers.

One is blocked with crates and equipment, while the other is barricaded with sandbags protecting a lookout post. A soldier stands within, a shabby greatcoat on his back and a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, his breath turning to steam in the frigid air. Binoculars stand ready on the sandbags, but he has no use of them. The French will not send their airship bombers across the Channel on Hallowtide, for they too are propelled by numenic engines driven by the souls of the dead. And so he rubs his hands and stamps his feet, struggling to stay warm. Doubtless he will have little else to occupy him until he is relieved by the next watch.

"There's no sneaking by him," says Emmeline. "We'll bluff our way past, just as before." She steps back so Della can snatch a look down the walkway.

"And what if he's not having it?" says Della, studying the sentry with hard eyes.

"Then we'll do what we must."

Della looks back at her with a twisted, bitter smile.

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"Oh, don't give me that look," says Emmeline. "Poor lad's drawn the short straw already, up here all night on Hallowtide. No need to make it worse."

Della looks back towards the soldier with a cold, hard stare. "If you say so."

"That I do. Let's go."

Della scowls and follows Emmeline out onto the wrought-iron walkway, lit by electric bulbs in guttapercha sockets that tremble with the wind. Their footsteps are drowned by the foghorns accompanying the raising of the bridge—until the bascules lock into place, the foghorns are silenced and their bootheels ring loud upon the walkway.

The sentry looks up, registering them with wide-eyed surprise. He fumbles for his rifle and points it at them. They yelp and throw their hands in the air.

"Who goes there?" he demands. A gust of wind whips his words away. He takes the cigarette from his mouth and shouts louder: "I said, who goes there!"

"Sergeant Atwell said we could cross!" cries Emmeline into the teeth of the wind.

"Say that again!" yells the lookout.

"I said, Sergeant Atwell said it was all right! The policeman!"

The soldier keeps his rifle trained on them. "I'm the one says it's all right. Not some bloody copper.

Come closer!"

They step down the walkway, chilled by the winds.

"That's close enough!" cries the lookout as Emmeline and Della come within ten feet. He eyes them over his rifle sights with a crooked smile on his face. "Curfew's any minute. What the bloody hell are you playing at?"

"Oh, please, sir!" cries Emmeline, playing the respectable mother once more. "My daughter can't be out after midnight. Not tonight! She's sensitive, she hears the dead in their engines, she'll be driven mad, she's just a poor girl..."

"That's your daughter?" says the lookout, incredulous at the mismatch between the stocky matron and the girl who towers over her.

"Oh, everyone says the same," says Emmeline. "Her papa was a giant of a man, and he heard the dead every year. And she hears them too. I must have her safe at home before it—" "Oh, shut up," sneers the lookout. "I know what she is. And you an' all. A whore and her keeper, off to the taverns in Southwark where all the sailors are. There to make a pretty penny, no doubt."

Della gives Emmeline a sidelong look. Emmeline ignores it and smiles knowingly. "No flies on this one, eh?" she says, her accent shifting its address to Whitechapel. "So what's the toll for the crossing?

Tuppence, like the Tube?"

"I'll let you pass for free," he says to Emmeline. Then he nods at Della. "But she can stay and earn her fare. And not for tuppence, neither."

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to do? Keeping us safe from the French?"

He snorts. "The frogs aren't coming tonight. The whole bleedin' war's taking a break for Hallowtide.

And you know what? It's cold up here. And dark, after curfew."

"You'll have to pay more than tuppence a ride, my lad. Can't you just let us—" But Della interrupts with a hand on Emmeline's shoulder. "You go," she says. "I'll stay and give him his money's worth."

Emmeline glances back at her. Della smiles, but her eyes are hard and pitiless. Emmeline looks back at the lookout, and his contemptuous sneer. She sees no pity there either. She takes a deep breath.

"Well then. Do what you must," she says. "Don't be long."

The lookout waves her off with the point of his rifle. Emmeline heads on to the south tower, the wind whipping her shawl around her until she's out of sight.

An electric bell rings up and down the iron walkway. "Curfew in thirty seconds," says the soldier, his eyes running up and down Della's tightly buttoned coat. "Come here."

She takes slow, teasing steps toward the sandbag shelter, slipping the shawl from off her shoulders as she goes. Out beyond the walkway, the lights of London wink out, district by district as power stations uncouple their massive banks of numenic engines to make them safe for Hallowtide.

"Take that coat off," says the soldier with a leer, leaning his rifle against the sandbags as she pauses at the entrance to the shelter. He steps towards her, eyes glued to her hands as she unbuttons her coat. He licks his lips as she pulls it open with a smile.

His eyes go wide in sudden fear.

There is no dress beneath the coat. Instead, she wears heavy black overalls with the legs rolled up to her knees. A pair of sturdy boots hang from the inside of the coat, ready to replace the dainty ones on her feet. Bandoliers carry tools and ammunition. A service revolver is holstered at her waist.

The lookout gasps. "You're an anarchist—" He lunges for his rifle. She whips a hand to her holster.

The electric bell rings out one final time. The lights fail and utter darkness falls upon the walkway.

A gunshot flashes on the lookout's shocked face.

He collapses to the iron deck, gasping as his rifle clatters beside him. Della places it beyond his reach as footsteps return from the south tower. He chokes blood and blinks until his eyes adjust and he sees Emmeline standing over him in the light of the newly-risen moon.

She casts aside her own coat and shawl to reveal dark clothes and a clerical collar around her throat.

Instead of a gun, she carries holy books and water strapped to her belt.

He gapes. "You bitch, you're no priest—" Della strikes him with the butt of her pistol, breaking his nose. Emmeline kneels by his side. "A priest I am," she says. "And you're dying this night. There's nothing I can do to help that. But I can put you beyond the reach of the press-board, if you'll let me."

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"You're an anarchist," he says, blood streaming down his face. "Terrorist!"

"Will you take absolution from me? Or will you go to the engines instead?"

He sneers. "They'll not press my soul for an engine. It's criminals and deserters the press-board take, not the likes of me!"

"I'll ask you again," says Emmeline. "Will you take absolution?"

He coughs blood. "And what good'll you do? You can hang a collar round your neck but you're no vicar. I'll not be shriven by a woman!"

"Let them take him," says Della. "We've no time for this."

Emmeline ignores her. "I'll ask you a third time and then I'll ask no more. Do you truly want your soul to waste away, turning the wheels in an engine? Until there's nothing left of you but a shadow, and they burn your corpse to make room for another? Where do you think you go, after that?"

He trembles, feeling the cold of death upon him. But he hardens his heart and spits in her face.

Emmeline sighs, wiping blood and sputum from her cheek. "Then we'll make it quick. Della?"

Della pulls a knife from her belt and smiles. Emmeline stands and turns away.

The soldier's scream is lost in the whistling wind.  A rifle cracks and a line sails out from atop the south tower, flying high over the transport vessels at anchor in the river below. It goes unseen by their sparse crews and arcs down to Butler's Wharf on the south bank where the grapnel clatters over a sloping lead roof until the iron hooks find purchase.

The line draws up tight, and a quiet buzz descends along the rope, rising in pitch until a woman in heavy boots and black overalls strikes the lead. Della tucks and rolls until she comes to a halt, then darts a quick look over the rooftop.

All is quiet, save for the distant lap of water from the river. Beyond, the curfew has left the city near as dark as death itself.

She trots in a crouch back to the line and tugs on it twice. A few seconds later, Emmeline follows her onto the roof. She strikes hard and tumbles across the lead, stopping just short of the drop down to the street below. She gasps in pain, shoving a fist in her mouth to keep from crying out.

Della pulls her back from the edge and asks: "Are you hurt?"

"No," gasps Emmeline. "Just old."

"I said this was a stupid idea."

"I know what you said," mutters Emmeline, sitting up and feeling for bruises. "Can you hear anything?

We should be right on top of it."

Della closes her eyes and frowns, listening for something other than the wind. "I don't know. It's faint.

I think it's muffled."

"Then it's military for sure," says Emmeline, struggling to her feet. "Let's find our way down before Hybrid Fiction October 2020

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Hallowtide starts."

They clamber down to a narrow balcony, then break a window to gain access to the stairs leading into the vast, cavernous warehouse below. Once, the staircase would have descended through floor after floor, groaning with tea, coffee, and sugar deposited there by ocean-going ships. But all those floors are gone now, and so are the goods they once held. Modern freighters propelled by numenic engines are too vast, so they land their goods downriver instead. Butler's Wharf fell idle and was bought up by the War Office to be rebuilt into a giant hangar for—what, exactly?

That was the question.

They light battery-lanterns and make their way down a creaking iron stairway bolted to the wall, their bootsteps echoing from the far side of the vast warehouse. But no one hears them. There are no guards inside the building over Hallowtide—a sure sign of numenic engines within.

Halfway down, Emmeline stops. "I see something," she says, shining her lantern into the gloom.

A domed shape hulks in the dark, near as tall as the building itself. Della adds her own light, picking out the barrels of cannon projecting from the dome.

"My God," says Emmeline.

"But it can't be!" says Della.

"It can't be anything else."

"But they were lost, every single one of them!"

Emmeline sets her jaw. "Now we know why the War Office had ships coming and going all summer.

They must have brought it here in pieces."

Della shines her light and picks out a line of massive caterpillar tracks running beneath the dome. And above them, a single word picked out in white on khaki-painted metal: INDOMITABLE. The last of Her Majesty's Peripatetic Fortresses. Built during the reign of Victoria when the generals believed the way to win a war was to dominate with sheer bulk. But the present war put an end to them.

Their massive tracks were vulnerable to the new guns on the smaller, swifter landships fielded by the French, and those that were not destroyed were reduced to stationary fortresses—of little use in a war whose front lines could shift a dozen miles in a single day.

"But why bring it here?" asks Della.

"For us," says Emmeline. "For when the East End rises up. We don't have the guns to put this monster down. Imagine if they send it into Whitechapel! There won't be any Whitechapel left."

"Jesus," mutters Della.

"Don't blaspheme. We've souls to set free."

So they carry on down the stairs until they reach the floor of the warehouse, then approach the tracks that stand three times their height. They circle round and find that the bulk of the landship is raised high enough that they need only crouch to reach the hatch on the underside. They pass below murder holes and machine-gun ports to find the hatch still open, then climb a riveted iron ladder into a cramped corridor running the length of the landship.

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Their footsteps echo down silent, empty passages. Della reaches for a bulkhead to steady herself, rubbing her temples and grimacing.

"Do you hear them?" asks Emmeline.

"I hear them," says Della.

"Which way?"

Della closes her eyes and grits her teeth, listening. She points a finger down a corridor without looking. "This way," she says, opening her eyes again.

She picks a path through the landship, stopping now and again to listen for the cries that Emmeline cannot hear. They come upon a hatch sealed with a wheel, and Della nods. This is the place. It takes both of them to turn the lock, but at length they gain entry, still gasping from the effort as they step into the engine hall.

The massive space deep at the heart of the landship is filled by sixteen engines stacked half on one side and half on the other. Each has a circular hatch at the front to give access to the capsule that holds the corpse within. From each engine run the belts and gears that drive the landship: four each for the tracks, four to generate electricity, and the rest held in reserve. But for now, the flywheels and gears are left uncoupled, so the dead can do nothing but spin their wheels when Hallowtide comes.

Spin their wheels and howl.

Della staggers and leans on the bulkhead by the door. "Oh God... They never took them out... Those bastards. They left them in the engines all these years... And they're still strong, they haven't ebbed away, what does that mean...?"

Emmeline puts a hand on her shoulder. "It means we must be quick." She looks around all the engines before settling on one that sits in a lower tier. "We'll start with that one," she says, pointing.

Della pushes herself off the steel wall and looks up, blinking. "We don't have time to get them all.

Hallowtide is close. They're calling out for it! I'll go mad in here, Emmeline. I'll go mad if I'm here when it starts."

"All we need do is free one," says Emmeline, eyes fixed on the engine. "Then they'll be kind to us while we free the rest."

"How do you know? You can't hear—" "I know," says Emmeline.

"But how—" "Because I do hear them."

Ethereal cries, lost in twisting winds and heard only at the edge of what the ear can detect, demanding attention, demanding aid, demanding retribution for the wrong done to them...

A thin line of moisture trickles down Emmeline's cheek before she dashes it away.

"Help me," she says and crosses to the engine. Della blinks at the screams and follows with unsteady steps. She joins Emmeline by the hatch that seals the engine-core, and together they heave on the wheel Hybrid Fiction October 2020

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to open the door.

It swings wide. Della falls to her knees, clutching her head at unbearable cries. Emmeline staggers, hearing only a fraction but still having to steel herself to stay upright. She reaches in for a handle to grasp at the capsule within and pulls.

It slides out on greased rails: a rotor cylinder lined with alternating strips of knotted yew and smooth birch, the two trees most sensitive to the alternating light and dark of the human soul. When the engine is engaged, the woods turn the rotor as the emanations of the soul wax and wane, providing an endless source of power that needs neither coal nor oil.

Emmeline heaves the core off its rails. It falls to the deck and the wood splinters to reveal an unbroken stator capsule of glass, painted with a coat of silver: a mirror, facing inwards and impregnated with apotropaic salts that trap the soul within the body.

Della fumbles for a wrench on her belt, but it falls from her hand. "Oh, God, I can't bear it—Get him out of there—" Emmeline takes up the wrench and brings it down upon the mirror-capsule, smashing it into a thousand glittering shards that fall upon the body within.

A gust of unearthly terror blows through them as though they were brittle autumn leaves. Della falls to her knees, screaming. Emmeline shudders as she sweeps the glass splinters from the corpse, heedless of their razor-sharp edges as the engine room reverberates to formless wails and screams that know no words.

At last, the body is free: grey and shrivelled after all its years trapped within the engine, half-buried in the rock salt packed with it to prevent decay.

A baby.

Della gasps. Now, there is no mistaking the tears that run down Emmeline's cheeks. There have long been dark rumours that the military use the corpses of infants in their engines, and it is clear why. Their souls are raw but strong. This one has lasted near twenty years when an adult would have been worn out after only three or four. He should have been a young man by now, but instead, he has endured a living death within the engines of the Indomitable.

Emmeline cries out, joining her voice with the ghost's scream. Della curls into a ball as the baby's wail stabs deep into her bones.

But then the ethereal cry ceases. They hear the ghost-voice attempt a new sound: a single syllable, repeated as though by infant lips. A sound the child never made in life, for he died before he was old enough to shape the words.

Ma... ma...

"William..." says Emmeline, caressing the cold brow of the long-dead child.

"He's yours...?" says Della.

Emmeline lifts him from among the mirror shards. "I'm here, William. That's how I would have baptised you. My William."

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"You knew," says Della, staggering to her feet. Emmeline looks up at her, the tears still wet on her face. "You knew he was here!"

Emmeline's eyes are like flint, daring Della to judge her as she cradles her son to her shoulder. "I knew," she agrees.

"You dragged me in here on bloody Hallowtide!"

Emmeline looks down at her son. "He died of a fever. I trusted a vicar to baptise him. But he took the bounty instead and had my son pressed for an engine. He said the body was cremated, but I knew. I knew!"

"You used me."

"Aye. I did."

Della gives Emmeline a hard stare. "You must baptise him. Send him on."

Emmeline reaches for her belt. "Yes. Of course. I—"

Ma... ma...

Emmeline pauses with her hand upon the book at her belt. A look of anguish crosses her face.

Ma... ma...

She looks up at Della, shaking her head in bewilderment. "Della... I cannot... I cannot lose him again..."

"You must."

"I cannot..."

Della pulls her pistol and points it at Emmeline. "Send him on, or I'll leave you both for the pressboard."

Della's eyes brook no dissent. So Emmeline nods and lays the corpse upon the deck. She kneels and takes the Book of Common Prayer from her belt, opening it at a much-thumbed page. "You must be the godmother," she says.

"Fine," says Della. "But be quick about it."

Emmeline looks down at her son and places a hand on his pale brow. "Dearly beloved, ye have brought this child here to be baptised—" "I said be quick about it."

Emmeline takes a breath. Then turns the page. "Dost thou, in the name of this child, renounce the Devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory—" "I renounce them all. Go faster."

Emmeline turns another page. "Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth? And in Jesus Christ his only-begotten Son, our Lord? And dost thou believe in the Holy Ghost?"

"Yes." "Wilt though be baptised in this faith?"

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"Yes." "Wilt thou then obediently keep God's holy will and commandments and walk in the same all the days of thy..." Emmeline wipes away a tear before finishing the line: "all the days of thy life?"

"I will. Skip to the water."

Emmeline uncorks a flask.

Ma... ma... comes the ethereal voice. Emmeline's hand trembles.

"Don't listen!" hisses Della through gritted teeth.

Emmeline dabs water onto her thumb and holds it over the infant's forehead. "I baptise thee in the name of the Father and... and..."

Ma... ma...

Emmeline's hand shakes. The droplet trembles on her thumb.

"He must be sent on!" says Della.

"In the name of the Father and... and of the Son and..."

Ma... ma...?

Emmeline turns her head.

They hear a wind rising in the distance as though sweeping across a great plain. Della’s revolver trembles in her hands as she feels the chill air rush through her soul. "Do it!"

They hear bells. All the bells of every church in London, muffled through the walls of the landship and warehouse yet somehow still audible as they ring out the hour—chime after chime after chime— "Send him on!" cries Della.

"No," says Emmeline, with tears streaming down her face.

The final bell strikes for midnight.

Ma ma.

The door to the engine hall creaks. Della springs to her feet and dashes for it, but the door crashes shut before she can get there.

Hallowtide has come at last. All across the nation, the precautions hold firm as uncoupled engines spin without purchase on their gears, the souls of innocent and guilty alike trapped by mirrors, their only sound the piercing wail of spirits, each in their own tiny capsule of hell— Save for here.

Ma ma.

Pipes rattle in the engine compartment. Tools clatter to the deck. Della's eyes go wide as she sees the clutch levers on the sides of the engines jumping back and forth, trying to engage the gears.

Emmeline lifts her son gently from the deck. He's cold and dry to the touch, his grey body stiffened by

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salt. "I'm sorry..." she says. "I couldn't stop them..."

Della dashes back to Emmeline and presses the pistol against the older woman's head. "Put him down!" she cries. But Emmeline clutches her son tight and shakes her head. Della jabs the barrel harder against her skull. "I said put him down!"

"Never!" cries Emmeline.

Della tightens her finger on the trigger— But a spanner flies across the deck and slams into her hand, knocking the gun to one side even as she fires. The bullet flies wide, ricocheting around the engine room until— Della cries out as the bullet punches her in the gut. She falls to her knees, blood bubbling from her mouth.

"I'm sorry, Della," says Emmeline. "I'm so sorry."

Della collapses. Her lifeblood spreads across the iron deck.

Emmeline looks down upon the infant in her arms. She puts a finger in his tiny grey hand and strokes the little palm.

The hand moves. Salt-stiffened fingers close around her fingertip. Holding on as tight as they did when he lived. He turns his head towards her with a creak of mummified flesh.

His eyes open. A spectral light shines from within. She can only stare into it, captivated by his longimprisoned soul.

Ma ma.

"Yes?" she says.

Ma ma?

"Yes..."

Ma ma.

"I shall do it," says Emmeline. She rises to her feet with renewed determination, goes to the engines and wrenches hard on the clutch levers to engage the gears.  A cruiser sits huddled with only a skeleton watch on board, keeping guard over the supply ships moored by the War Office warehouse. They too are lightly manned. With their engines made safe, most of their crews have disembarked to the lamplit fug of Southwark taverns. Beyond the river, London lies dead and dark, lit only by the faint sparks of paraffin lamps and battery-lanterns.

All is quiet.

Until the wall of Butler's Wharf explodes into the Thames.

Bricks and rubble shower the ships. Out of the debris bursts the great dome of the Indomitable, firing its guns at the cruiser and igniting its magazine. The ship explodes with a crack that shudders the waters, sending burning sailors flying across the river as the vessel breaks in two and sinks into the tidal murk.

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Screams rise up from the waves as imprisoned souls escape from the shattered engines to seek out the living and drive them mad with their cries.

The landship rumbles the short distance to the river, snapping off the mooring posts and crashing into the Thames, sending up a wave that rocks the supply ships even as debris continues to fall from the sky. The Indomitable was designed to float like an iron ship so it could cross rivers without bridge or ford, and so it rises up above the waves, tracks churning the water into foam and driving the iron beast upstream.

It passes through the open jaws of Tower Bridge and fires its guns at the base of each tower as it powers by, shattering the masonry and revealing the iron skeleton within. Another blast on each side and the girders are severed. The towers collapse, casting their piles of Portland stone and Cornish granite into the river, damming the waters so they will rise up and foul the city with effluent from all the sewers that flow into the Thames. A final shot cracks open the bridge engine beneath the road on the northern bank, freeing more souls to wreak havoc upon the living.

But this is only the beginning.

"To Westminster," says Emmeline on the bridge of the Indomitable, holding her dead son tight while unseen hands turn wheels that direct the fortress upstream. "The ones who did this to you are there." In the War Office in Whitehall, in the Board of Impressment in St James, and in Downing Street.

The screams of the living will join the screams of the dead. For Hallowtide shall have its vengeance this night.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

BEWARE THE SNAKE

By Heather Santo

Ira found himself in the nightmare again. He was a boy, not quite ten years old. Standing with his Uncle and several men with guns. In front of him was a tree and the old shaman. His skin was dark and worn like leather. Ropey muscles covered his body, draped with tanned animal skin. A calm peace radiated from him, despite the noose around his neck.

His milky, blind eyes seemed to look at Ira as if he could see.

“Beware the snake,” he told Ira, in a language only Ira understood.

“Shut up,” his Uncle said, and kicked the wooden crate from under the shaman’s feet.

The sound of the rope snapping jerked Ira from the dream, and he sat up in bed, gasping.

“Ira?” His wife Edna, voice thick with sleep, stirred next to him. Her hand found his arm in the darkness. “Is it the dream again?”

Before Ira could reply, a frantic knocking started at the front door.

Young Edwin stood, bathed in pre-dawn shadows. “What is it, boy?” Ira asked, tugging a robe over his shoulders. He motioned for the boy to enter, but he remained rooted in the threshold.

“Father sent me.” Even in the darkness, Ira could see the boy was as white as a sheet. “It’s mother. Can you come?”

The Jones family lived on a settlement several miles outside town. Quickly, Ira dressed and collected his apothecary case. His eldest son Elijah readied the horses and he climbed into the wagon with Edwin.

Sun broke over the rolling, golden Nevada hills as the wagon’s wheels followed the twisting Truckee river North. Ira patted Edwin’s arm, trying to comfort the boy, and asked him a series of questions.

“I don’t know,” Edwin said. “Some kind of fever. It hit her in the middle of the night. She was slick and shiny, like she’d gone swimming in the river.” He nodded at the moving water alongside the wagon. “And there’s something wrong with her eyes.”

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“Her eyes?” Ira repeated, but as a question.

“They turned white and cloudy,” he replied. “She screamed that she couldn’t see.”

The old apothecary shivered.

A tiny wooden house appeared at the top of the next hill. Edwin’s father, John, stood on the front porch, watching for their arrival. Ira’s son stopped the horses and exited the wagon. He helped his father, stiff with age and rheumatism, out. Edwin hopped down next to him.

“Take me to her,” Ira said to John.

They entered the house.

Tillie lay sprawled on the floor in the main living area, atop heaped blankets. A thin nightgown, damp with sweat, clung to her chest and hips. He could see the indent of her navel, and the spasms that made the skin of her abdomen quake.

“John,” she cried. “Help me.”

“Ira is here,” he murmured, coming to his knees next to his wife. Ira lowered himself to the floor and flipped open the hinges of his wooden apothecary case. Inside, glass bottles clinked together. He searched the vials, some filled with liquid, others with powder. He removed the mortar and pedestal and set them on the floor next to the feverish woman.

“Have you seen anything like this before?” Ira could hear panic in John’s question.

Ira did not reply. He poured white powder into the mortar and added a clear liquid, then ground the mixture into a thick paste with the pedestal.

Most people in town were wary of Ira’s practices. He’d studied with the local Washoe tribe before opening his apothecary. There was still much distrust between the settlers and native people, but Ira respected the herbal remedies used by the tribes in the area. They were the same remedies used by the shaman. The same man who’d found five-year-old Ira wandering the hills of Nevada, lost and nearly starved, after his entire family had died of influenza on their journey Westward.

“I can’t see,” Tillie gasped. Her hair was plastered to her forehead. Ira glanced over as he added a vial of herbs to the paste and continued to grind.

A film seemed to cover her eyes. She blinked over and over, futilely.

“Here,” he said calmly and administered the medicine.

Tillie’s tongue lolled. She spat the paste back in his face.

“Beware the snake,” she hissed.

Ira sat back as terror, like an ice-cold river, pumped through his body.

He realized his son was still with the horses. “Elijah?” he called, attempting to stand. His sore, swollen knees shook, and Ira fell back to the ground.

The woman next to him spasmed, as if possessed by an evil spirit, screamed once, and died.

John howled with grief and rage.

“What did you give her?” he demanded. “You’ve killed her!”

Ira crawled to the open door. Outside, the wagon was backlit by the rising sun. An orange glow washed over the valley. Elijah stood next to the horses, who were rearing back, spooked by something Ira couldn’t quite make out.

He crawled onto the porch, and what he saw made him gasp.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Santo

“Beware the Snake”

The large black snake, coiled on the ground, snapped at the kicking hooves of the horses.

Heavy boot steps approached. Ira rolled to his back and looked up at John.

A shotgun pointed down at his head.

“You killed her,” he yelled again, right before he pulled the trigger.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

50

CIRCLE OF BLOOD

By Marcus Vance

I scrape my shoes on the well-worn welcome mat before stepping through the door. My partner walks right in after me with her dirty shoes. No respect for someone else's castle.

The smell of latex gloves and aluminum fingerprint fairy dust mix with the odor of a lived-in suburban home. “'Bout time the Feds showed up,” whispers a forensics tech.

We ignore him, and step into the kitchen to find the man in charge.

My partner does the talking.

“I'm Agent Prince,” she says flashing her I.D. “This is Agent White. What can you tell us Officer—” She steals a quick glance at his nameplate. “Haskins?”

He shakes his head. “Not much. The father woke up to a bump in the night, checked on his daughter, and found her missing. Glass on her window was shattered from the outside.”

“Exactly like the others,” I mutter. “She didn't just sneak out to some midnight dance.”

“Yeah, but have a look at this.” He leaves, we follow.

He hunkers down near the rose bushes under her window and points to the soil and ordure.

“Size ten boot. Work or military. Pretty unique tread pattern, so my shoemaker contact says.”

I snap a picture of the print on my phone.  Only one pea disturbs the bed of this case. One chain link.

Three girls have been taken. Two have been found in forests far away, gnawed on by grim wolves.

All of them attended Seven Corners Elementary School.

The principal, Ms.Weintraub, has seen her share of grief. I just need to look into her eyes to know that.

She's a tough old bird.

Unfortunately, she's not able to tell us anything we don't know.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Vance

“Circle of Blood”

53

“If you think of anything, please let us know,” says Agent Prince, handing out her card.

We step out, and tuck our hands deep into our coats to ward off the cold.

“Let's interview a few more people here,” I say. “Then thaw out and think someplace.”

Prince nods. Neither of us want to quit just yet. Neither of us want this monster to win.

We talk to her teachers: Mr. Ash and Mrs. Swan. Nothing.

Her friends: Ariel and Jasmine.

Nothing.

Even the groundskeeper: John Wyrm.

Nothing.

He just twists his rake in his hands, and walks away in his muddy boots.

I turn to walk away too, but Prince catches my arm in a steel grip.

She has fire in her eyes.

“Show me that boot print picture, White.”

I oblige her.

She squats down on her haunches and compares the picture to Wyrm's impression.

I nod slowly.

“Hey, Mr. Wyrm!” I call out.

He drops his rake. He bolts like lightning.

Part of me wants to make a “glass slipper” joke, but I can’t think of one fast enough. We give chase.

The groundskeeper runs up a hill, and my thighs start to burn. Prince is in better shape than I am, and she passes me—cutting the distance between us and Wyrm.

Wyrm crests the hill, and after a few moments so do we. He's at a house pulling keys out of his pocket. His place.

Prince gets to the front gate, and waits for me. She draws her Glock and gives me three seconds to catch my breath.

We go through the door together.

Doorways are bad. They're called the “fatal funnel” for a reason. You have to go through 'em, and you don't know what's on the other side.

Wyrm stands on the other side of this door with a rifle raised.

It booms dragon-fire once, and I catch the bullet in my right forearm. I drop.

Prince rushes past me, following Wyrm to another part of the house.

Awkwardly and painfully, I wrap my jacket around my hurt arm and southpaw my pistol. A-hunting I go.  Kid's tied up and crying in the middle of the floor. A network of dried blood stains the wood around her, painting a picture of glowing circles, runes, and sigils. Something old.

But this little girl’s unscathed, the blood’s from the other kids.

Rat bastard Wyrm.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Vance

“Circle of Blood”

“It's gonna be okay,” I say to her as I untie her with my one good arm.

The kid just cries.

I hear Prince from some other room: “Get on the ground!” Then two dull thunder cracks. Her 9mm.

An ungodly howl follows, then a minute of silence as the glowing on the floor fades.

“You still alive, Prince?” I hazard.

“Yeah!” she shouts. “I'm fine.”

I smile. Despite the gunshot wound, it's a happy ending.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

54

A DAY LIKE ANY OTHER

By Alexandra Seidel

It was a day like any other. My old handler had just died that very morning, and they'd brought Leo in from some other assignment, I never knew what or where, but he smelled of the sun.

"Nice to meet you," he said, shaking my hand and smiling honestly.

I mumbled a response. My handshake was firm. I added a smile.

Since that day, we have worked well together. I think—I hope—that's what the performance reports say. They don't show me those, and I have no idea what they show him. Working for the Agency, it is like becoming a nesting doll with a tiny truth hidden inside so many smiling faces. I smile as often as I remember to, and hope that is noted in the performance reports I don't even really know exist.

Most days I spend at the office. There is a gate outside and a security person, then a big, competent yet inaccurate logo on the wall because to the wider world, the Agency does not exist. I smile at the security personnel and try to tell their faces apart, glean their moods. I try to be a doll that fits into this doll house.

They will often have me sort unlabeled envelopes or make me play word association games. Both are easy, not least because I don't know the things and implications to which I am sorting the sealed data points or whatever they are. With the word associations, I can tell myself later on that I just made up random stuff with no bearing on reality, that anyone could have said these things.

Sometimes there's a séance. I find séances deeply taxing and unsettling, and before the Agency recruited me, I kept my distance from dead things. These days, I try to keep my thoughts about death deeply nestled in my doll heart. Leo gets to drive me home after the séances or watch over me until I'm fully myself again, until I'm physically back to normal. Other times, when they need me in the field, he carries a gun and a flurry of false IDs. Next to him, I follow a prearranged script with the skill and conviction of any wooden-hearted thing. I smile, and we work well together.

My first handler was Beth. We worked okay together. She died suddenly. Leo also sees me outside of work. Beth never did.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Seidel

“A Day Like Any Other”

56

 I live in an apartment building with a doorman and a lush carpet in the front hall. The carpet is a light gray, and I like how it looks against the lighter marble floor. Before the Agency recruited me, I could not have afforded to live in a place like this, but I had a roommate I liked, whom I went to parties with, friends that I visited and actually had real conversations with... I try not to think about them anymore.

There is a good amount of visible surveillance cameras in my building, another good amount that no one is supposed to know about.

Sometimes I think there are cameras in my apartment. I feel like I'm being watched there, but only occasionally after a psych evaluation or if something out of the ordinary happened at work, so I do know they are turned off most of the time.

"Hello," Leo said one day. I'd come home, exhausted. They had me sort envelopes for hours, unusual and hinting at something both urgent and big. I never really know what I'm sorting when I'm doing it, but on occasion—after it is done—they will tell me that I helped identify a spy or put together a committee or something like that. I think it's supposed to be a morale booster, these little drops of information. It's supposed to build trust. I make a polite comment and smile, I never show too much interest, I never show no interest, I keep my thoughts hidden behind red lips painted on wood and bright glass eyes.

I sorted all day that day, and I was very tired. Leo was looking out the living room window that overlooks the street with the traffic light and the bagel shop. Sometimes when I take the subway to work, I stop at that bagel shop for genuine small talk and food, and it makes me feel almost like a temp fresh out of college again. It makes me feel normal. I forget for a few blissful moments.

Leo had been in the apartment already when I turned the key in the lock. He looked at me over his shoulder as I walked in.

"Hi," I said. His teeth were very white. He smiled. "How did you...?" I motioned to the door and back to fill in the blanks in my question.

"Do you want me to leave?"

I dropped my bag where I stood. "I'm not sure; maybe not."

He nodded as if he had expected as much. "Then I'll stay. You look exhausted.”

"You know I am." He did. He'd brought in the stacks of envelopes, one after the next, their continuance only broken by a tray with salad and a guac sandwich.

Leo nodded. He stayed the night.  There was a very clear understanding between Leo and me. We wouldn't tell anyone, and we wouldn't let anyone see. So at work and on assignment, he was my handler. I'd sprinkle him with sarcasm and teasing inside jokes, the things I knew kept them from giving me anti-depressants, and he would bear it Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Seidel

“A Day Like Any Other”

57

all with military trained equanimity and friendliness; that was us.

By then I'd learned enough about people, living or dead, good and not, to know that his friendliness was genuine and that he was perhaps a bit more fond of me than any handler should be. Beth had been just the right amount. Beth was the full amount of dead anyone can be.

My recruitment and the circumstances of my joining the Agency had been a semi-voluntary arrangement; at first, I didn't want to work for them, at all. It took them weeks to persuade me, and I have memory gaps of that time. From what I understand this is not unusual though it is not talked about after you join the Agency. There were unsavory episodes that I sometimes do remember, bits and pieces that spark brightly through the fog of forgetting. That, too, is not terribly unusual, and not talked about.

I doubt that they would mind finding Leo in my apartment. I know there are no regulations about it, at least not for me. Maybe it is different for handlers. Leo never gave me a reason for being discreet, just vised me with those dark eyes of his and said, don't tell anyone about this. Like I would.  "I brought you a black eye," Leo said, handing me the cup.

"Thank you." I'd had a séance the night before, and it had left me with heavy bags under my eyes, my skin still itchy as if all my clothes were nettle-woven.

I don't always remember every detail of a séance, I experience it from sort of a different viewpoint, but this one stuck out. The interrogator had wanted something very specific, and I remembered none of it for some reason.

"You're going in for another séance today," Leo told me after the first sip. The coffee tasted strong enough to float iron.

"Oh, c'mon..."

I hate the séances, but I'd only ever say that out loud during the psych eval. The doctor doing those is like me, so lying to him doesn't work, keeping things away from his second sight is difficult enough.

"I told them you'd prefer to have a day in between, but it's urgent," Leo said.

"I'll just finish this first," I said, raising the coffee with a tired smile. I am probably the best at conjuring back the dead for a chat that they have at the Agency; they can wait for me to finish my coffee. It's not something I would ever say out loud.  When I got home that evening, I couldn't turn on the lights. They were too bright, and my head was an angry drummer's new favorite instrument.

"You must have been channeling quite a fiend," Leo said in the darkness. I could see his teeth, their white gleaming like piano keys in moonlight.

"I think it was a scientist." Like with the séance the day before, it was difficult to remember the details.

"Scientists can be fiends. You should eat something."

He'd told me that before, back at the office, but I was allowed to go two days without food.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Seidel

“A Day Like Any Other”

58

"I don't want to taste anything right now, I don't want to swallow anything." I never did, not so soon after. It was too much like allowing one of the dead to enter and use my mouth to speak their thoughts.

I imagined him nodding. It was too dark to see the actual movement.

"Tell me about the séance."

And I dug for the words, one by one, his hand hard against my temple, the darkness floating in to wash over me like the living current under a frozen river.  By the end of the week, I was pretty sure that this was about rounding up people, and that I had provided them with a list of names. A list of names and something else. The girl at the bagel shop, the one with the pony tail and genuine smile and the uncanny gift of knowing a person's order before they said it out loud, she'd gone.

It was in all the papers of course, at least the parts the Agency allowed to trickle to the press. Some papers called it a cleansing because people were very systematically picked up for further processing, some said it was putting a certain talent that was limited to only part of the population to good use and that was a good thing, finally the right decision to handle those people.

And there was the cure of course! A drug that helped alleviate the symptoms for certain gifted individuals that had difficulties leading productive lives with all the beyond-normal things they heard or saw or could do. I wondered if at some point weeks from now, the girl with the pony tail would be back at the counter in the bagel shop, unable to guess my order and with a smile that never reached her eyes.

Sure. I suspected that they would put those people that were too useful to be rendered numb by the cure through something like the recruitment process I went through. And if you do say no during that process, what use is your talent then? I had gotten the very clear sense that my talent would be no use at all to anyone if I said “No.” I joined the Agency because I'd been afraid to die. The recruitment process doesn't give the option of going back to your old life, they told me that in no uncertain terms.

Of course, even now no one knew about the Agency. The papers all mentioned a different scheme, a special settlement program, which might have existed, I couldn't be sure. But that the Agency existed and was behind all of that, that would never get to a journalist.

Leo could tell I was walking a fine line between being royally pissed off and very scared. I could tell he was afraid I would come down scared.

"I scheduled some workout time for you and I," he said. He meant self-defense. It was mandatory, but I happened to enjoy it. He was already out of his suit and wearing sweats.

"Yeah, thanks."

"Stop reading that and join me," he said. The news articles were open on my computer. I was certain I'd also have a psych eval later to talk about my recent reading preferences.

"Sure, just... a minute, okay?"

He nodded and walked off toward the elevators. The gym is downstairs, the regular downstairs, not the downstairs that you need a special key card for.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Seidel

“A Day Like Any Other”

59

I scanned a few more headlines, looked at the photos of people that had been taken. A part of me wanted to memorize the bylines so I'd know the names of a few reporters I might approach. I would of course never find anyone to talk to. Another part of me wanted to memorize the faces in case one of them turned up as a new co-worker. Then a notification pinged me out of my fantasies. I was going to have a psych eval later on. I closed the articles, clicked it all away like broken links, and went downstairs.  The psych eval ran long. The questions were very detailed, focusing on guilt and whether I was happy enough to deal with it.

"Maybe," I said. The word just came out, and even I didn't know if it was true, so the doctor wouldn't either.

"I think we should have daily sessions for a little while. You seem to be under some stress," he said, because he couldn't tell what maybe meant, not even with his supernatural talent for insight.

I nodded. What else could I have done?  After I closed the doctor's office door behind me, I saw the notification on my phone. An hour every day was blocked on my schedule. I was ready to finally get home and collapse. I felt the grip and afterglow of the séances on top of everything else.

"Ready to go now?" Leo asked. He'd had a shower and was back in his suit. There was still a tiny bit of moisture clinging to his hair. "I'll drop you off."

He did most evenings of course. It was part of his job, though he never made me feel like it was.

"I'll just get my purse," I said. "And my gym bag." The latter I'd brought up from the basement with me. After the workout, laundry was due.

"Alright. Meet you in the parking lot in ten?"  The ride was quiet. I was too tired for the sarcasm or anything remotely resembling a joke, and besides it felt like the bugs in the car were on. It was a company car after all.

"Have a good night," I told Leo as I grabbed my purse.

"You too. See you tomorrow."

I let the car door fall shut behind me and walked the few steps to my building. As expected, I could hear the car not moving away behind me, Leo was watching to make sure I got inside.

It was just a handful of steps to the door. I pulled it open and walked through, finally releasing Leo from his work obligations for the day.

"Good evening," the doorman said from his desk in the lobby. I had long ago marked him as working for the Agency. I still liked him.

"Good evening," I said. I managed a smile, somewhat to my own surprise. All I wanted was sleep.

"Looks like you had a long day. How about some candy?" His smile was genuine and warm, perhaps Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Seidel

“A Day Like Any Other”

60

somewhat on the sad side. I saw a face flash before me, a woman just a bit younger than I'd been when they'd recruited me. She looked like a co-ed. She was related to him, and she had been driven off somewhere in a dark van, I knew that with sixth sense certainty. I tried to force the face into the hollow mind of a doll hidden inside a doll hidden inside a doll.

"No, but thank you," I said. "Have an uneventful night." I went straight through to the elevators.

"And to you," he said, putting the candy down with a sugary rattle and a rattling sigh.

I picked an elevator that was already there. The doors slid open immediately. For some reason someone had decided that mirrors all around would be a great design choice for the interior of the elevator. I'd never liked it. I was staring back at me from every angle, and I looked terrible. There was music playing too, and it was almost like I was at a carnival. Me, the fortune teller main attraction, me the beast that's chained in the shadows and betrays her own kind.

On my floor, things were as quiet as they always were. I slid my key into the lock and turned.

I switched on the light in the hallway and walked into the living room. Leo was standing by the window, looking out at the traffic light and the bagel shop.

"Long day," he said, and turned. His dark eyes were a striking contrast to his teeth.

"Yes. I'm exhausted."

"You read the articles?"

I slumped down on the couch. "I'll never be able to unread them. And counseling every day for the foreseeable future."

"That was bound to happen sooner or later."

A knock came from the door. Then a key was inserted into the lock, turned, and the door opened.

"Hey, sorry, but you forgot your gym bag in the car," Leo said. He came walking down the hallway.

When he saw himself standing by the window, outlined by the lights radiating up from the slumbering city below, he dropped the gym bag where he stood.

"What the—" he said.

And the other Leo smiled. "Well, it looks like you are trailing company," he said without actually looking at me. He looked at himself.

I got up from the couch, but didn't move toward either Leo. I thought if I didn't keep my eyes on them, I might never be able to tell them apart again. Except I didn't know if that was really true.

"Is this real?" Leo asked, the one that had brought me my gym bag. His right hand was slowly moving toward his gun.

"Whatever do you mean by real?" the other Leo asked. His voice was so cold, it sounded almost nothing like Leo, who had smelled of the sun when we first met. "As real as making her channel a murdered geneticist? As real as getting that despicable ghost to design you a so-called cure and steal our gifts?"

He pointed at me when he mentioned the séances, and suddenly I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Seidel

“A Day Like Any Other”

61

here. Whether I wanted to be an exhibit. Or a witness. Whether I had really ever thought of what I did as a gift.

Leo, who had brought me my gym bag, looked at me, and there was raw terror in his eyes. I felt very sorry for him, because none of this was fair. None of it would have been in his training manual. And I couldn't know what they'd told him about the circumstances of Beth's death.

"What is this?" he asked, gym bag still at his feet. His eyes never left mine.

I opened my mouth to say something, maybe tell him to run, but I never got the chance.

"What this is is unfortunate," the other Leo said. He moved fast, just a little bit faster than a regular human. In terms of reflexes, he outmatched Leo who had brought me my gym bag. He put one hand around the other's throat, for a second almost lovingly. Then he squeezed. His other hand closed around Leo's right hand, the hand that had been going for the gun.

"You took her choices," he said. "And you made her bring back the voice of a sick monster to help you make a cure for something that's not an illness."

Leo who had brought me my gym bag tried to say something, or maybe he just wanted to scream. He couldn't, just a sort of whistling sigh managed to escape.

My mouth meanwhile had gone dry. My feet were heavy unmovable objects. Part of me knew that I should do something to save Leo. Another part of me knew that if I did something, the Agency would kill Leo. My Leo. I blinked, and suddenly it was difficult to tell the two apart. Or maybe it was not difficult at all.

The face of Leo who had brought me my gym bag had gone very still. His capillaries were burst and his mouth and eyes hung open wide as if he'd just gotten the most magnificent birthday surprise. This was no birthday.

"Did you kill Beth?" I asked Leo, who still had his hand around Leo's throat.

"You killed Beth," he said without taking his eyes off the eyes of Leo who had brought me my gym bag even though they were losing focus.

I might've done it; I must've done it. I sure did it, and I'd known all along. Hearing that I did it failed to shock me the way I thought it should.

Eventually, Leo dropped Leo, right next to the gym bag. He was dead, and I still needed to do laundry.

My mouth was dry.

"I can take care of him," Leo said.

"And then what?"

He looked at me, a wide white smile, painted as if on wood. "Don't you worry. You look too tired to be worrying. How about you go to sleep, and in the morning everything will look different."

I was tired, I couldn't argue with that, and I would have loved very much for the world to be different.

I slept deeply and soundly without a nightmare and barely a dream. 

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

Seidel

“A Day Like Any Other�

62

"Good morning. You slept in today."

Leo was in my bedroom, tying his tie in front of my mirror. He finished, pulling the knot into place around his throat. "You should get up. We can get bagels on our way to the Agency." He turned and came over, sat down on my bed and gave me the whitest of white smiles. "Get up. We have so much work to do."

I agreed. Leo did not smell of the sun, his scent was a different thing, and it made my wooden heart beat like a thing of muscle and blood. "Did you do laundry last night," I asked.

"Of course. There is not a speck left, not a smudge."

I remembered Beth, and how Beth had died. It would be good to share this with as many people at the Agency as possible.

"I like the way you think," Leo said. "Let's show everyone how Beth died."

We would get bagels first, and coffee. This would be a day like any other. Almost.

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72

Until next time...

Whenever that is… Stay safe and healthy, and God bless.

Hybrid Fiction October 2020

73

About the authors and artists…  Eden “Eddie” Richards is an artist trained in mixed media from youth and an avid writer and roleplayer. Hybrid fiction is their personal favorite genre, pulling bits and pieces from different centuries and styles of fiction to craft something they’re truly passionate about. Contact: noedenart@gmail.com or Twitter @noedenart

Writing. Recent stories in Aurealis, Flame Tree Press, The Grievous Angel, and others. SFWA, HWA and Codexian member. Contact: earthianhivemind.net or Twitter @SPBianchini

 O. Sander is a writer, artist, composer, photographer, crafter, and family caregiver. She is originally from California but has bounced from place to place for most of her life. She finally landed in “25 square miles surrounded by reality” in Michigan, where she spends her time inventing worlds and exploring them through her drawings as well as writing their stories and music. She claims to be a combination of Morticia Addams and Glinda the Good Witch, and tends to embarrass her long-suffering spouse into trying to pretend he doesn’t know her. Contact: http://beneathstrangestars.com/ or http://amazon.com/author/osander.  Marco Cultrera was born in Rome, Italy, and now lives in Ottawa, Canada. After a start as a theoretical physicist, he built a decade-long career as a video-game writer, creative director, and game designer, before becoming the stay-at-home dad of three daughters and, more recently, four cats. His short fiction has also appeared on The Arcanist and Polar Borealis. Contact: Twitter @marcocult and via email marcocultrera@gmail.com.  Graham Kennedy has been a professional illustrator for nearly 30 years. His mediums of choice are marker pen and coloured pencil (with some Photoshop embellishments). Whilst he can, and does (!) work digitally if the job requires it, he still prefers to work “traditionally”—and he continues to see a place for hand painted art even in this digital age. In his words, “You only have to look at the art of the great Drew Struzan to appreciate that!” Contact: GKillus@aol.com or https://www.facebook.com/GrahamKennedyIllustr ation  Russell Hemmell is a French-Italian transplant in Scotland, passionate about astrophysics, history, and speculative fiction. Winner of the Canopus Awards for Excellence in Interstellar

 Paul R. Hardy lives in the UK with a coffee habit, a laptop and various debilitating health problems.

He works at a major NHS hospital, which is handy for the health problems, and writes speculative fiction that has appeared (or will appear) in a variety of short fiction markets. He considers himself to be a history buff, but has always maintained that he would prefer not to experience any major historical events, as the casualty rate for such things is far too high. He is aware of the irony.  Heather Santo is a development chemist living in Pittsburgh, PA with her husband, daughter, two dogs, two cats and pet tarantula. In addition to writing, her creative interests include photography and painting. She also collects skeleton keys.

Contact: Instagram and Twitter @Heather52384  Marcus Vance is a full-time father; part-time writer (SFWA member), line editor, and weapons consultant for TV. Contact: Twitter @MarcusCVance  Alexandra Seidel spent many a night stargazing when she was a child. These days, she writes stories and poems, and drinks a lot of coffee (too much, some say). Alexa's writing has appeared in Future SF, Uncanny Magazine, Fireside Magazine, and elsewhere. Contact: Twitter @Alexa_Seidel, Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/AlexaSeidelWrites/), or alexandraseidel.com  Toeken was born in the UK and currently resides in Spain. Many of his art works and illustrations have been published in magazines and on book covers. An awful raconteur, walking storehouse of mind-numbingly useless information, connoisseur of bad wine and even worse relationships, he is generally considered by those who know him to be an ill-tempered curmudgeon cursed with an irrepressibly optimistic world-view. Contact: https://atoekeneffort.weebly.com/ or toeken@hotmail.com

Hybrid Fiction October 2020