XI.

Vagari awoke with a start. Eyes wide with fright, breath caught in his throat, he scanned his surroundings. But, for what, he didn’t rightly know. “Vagari, are you okay?!” BP asked, mirroring his jolt as she scrambled for her spear. “What’s wrong?!” Vagari pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes and let that caught breath free as he tried to settle himself. The encounter felt distant now, as it had before, but the image of that place remained at the forefront of his mind. “It’s fine… It’s fine,” Vagari lied, unable to shake off the frigid assault on his mind. “I just had a nightmare, is all. It… It happens a lot, and for that I’m sorry.”

“Must have been a nasty one – cold too,” BP said with a sigh of relief, before pointing to the center of camp, to a tiny campfire burning in the exact spot the phantom one had. “I saw you shaking, so I tried to warm you up.”

Vagari unshielded his eyes and followed her direction to the middling flames. All he could see in it was the horrors of days past, but he managed a smile for her all the same. “Yes,” Vagari replied hoarsely, “very cold… Thank you, BP. That was very kind, but next time wake me up to help. There is no telling what dangers lurk here – so don’t wander off.”

“Eh – right, sorry,” She stammered with a flickering smile of her own. “I also tried to catch a frog – I think – but it was too fast… Cursed and jumped away. MEEP! Whatever that means… Sounded rude, but I don’t really know frog so I can’t say for sure.”

“Sounds like a frog to me,” Vagari returned with a laugh as he shuffled to his feet. “Don’t worry too much though – in all actuality we’re surrounded by food. This algae, even raw, is perfectly edible – if… a bit unsavory. Honestly, you won’t like it, but you won’t die either. Eastend dries and refines it, turning it into a sort of flour or powder to mix in as a supplement.”

Vagari leaned over and tore off a sheet from the algae mats that made up most of the bog. It smelled awful, like boiled spinach poured down a sink drain, and he knew it would taste at least twice as bad. He picked at it a minute and then took a bite to show BP that it was safe. Of all his new body’s adaptions, the ability to turn off his sense of taste was not one of them. Vagari managed to suffer quietly as she followed his direction. “This isn’t that bad at all,” BP boldly claimed as she tore into a chunk. “I kinda like it actually.”

“Good god, what did Dr. Xu feed you?” Vagari asked with a dry laugh, nearly gagging on their sour breakfast. “I mean, if this is good…”

“Mostly a mixture of proteins and essential nutrients,” she said nonchalantly. “Everyone ate it. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, but I heard that it tasted just like ‘shit’ – whatever that is.”

Now Vagari did choke, but on a laugh rather than their fetid meal. “Honestly, this comes quite close,” He replied with a cackle before tossing the rest of the sheet beyond the ruined walls of their camp. “Unfortunately, we won’t be able to enjoy the fire, pressed for time as we are… We better get going, so eat up.” BP did as she was told as they walked and without complaint, leaving what seemed like the last bit of warmth left in the bog behind – artificial as it was. As the sun rose and the meal settled, Vagari began to feel some semblance of strength coming back to him. It was some small comfort as they walked into the unknown, but one that was nipped and nagged at by dread and what-ifs. “So, what were you dreaming about?” BP asked, chasing away his fear of the future with regret of the past.

“Angels and ghosts,” Vagari answered truthfully as he hopped over a small pool. He paused for a moment to help BP cross before continuing, saying “A few days before I found you, I was travelling in different company – a caravan of archaeologists and their attachment. There was a girl amongst them. No one I knew, but we chatted briefly, and she seemed like a nice sort. But… we were attacked by the same people who are after my friend, Soprano. I tried to protect her… but I was the only one to survive the encounter. I must have got lucky after they shot me. Instead of finishing the job they left me for dead. I dream of her… Or rather some version of her, I guess. I didn’t get the chance to know the real her. I wish I had,” Vagari uttered softly as he slowed to a stop, balling his fists up at his side. “I wish I had asked her name at least – asked where she was going, if she had family to… to let know what happened. But I didn’t. Now I’ll never know, and if she does, neither will they.”

Suddenly Vagari felt BP’s dwarfish arms wrap around the width of his leg. She was staring up at him, eyes wide and coming to tears again. Something in those green-hazel eyes brought a familiar warmth to him and he couldn’t help but smile. He couldn’t pin it down, the familiarity, the warmth. Was it the color itself? The emotion so plain in them? Or was it something else entirely – maybe the unfounded optimism he could see in them? She saw the world like no other, like no other could afford to, Vagari realized. She saw it with hope and empathy, and she saw him with the same eyes. It almost hurt. It did hurt. Would she look at him the same if she knew the truth? If she knew of his hand in casting the shroud of misery that now blanketed the world? Did he care? “Come on now, none of that,” Vagari told her, though not unkindly. He unballed his fists to dab at the welling tears. “No time for it, I’m afraid. We still have some ways ahead of us.” Vagari gently pushed away from the embrace and carried on with a sigh. He cared, for whatever reason. He didn’t want to.

Another day passed as they tiptoed their way through the bog, and nearly another after that. They had to be getting close now, Vagari thought, just judging by the distance his original route would have taken him. Eastend had to be nearby by any calculation, but the lack of physical signs was beginning to be disheartening. All Vagari could see was algae pools dotting the land for what seemed like miles, all the way up to where a vast wall of fog took the place of the horizon.

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They were going the right way, Vagari was sure of it, but he couldn’t shake the feeling they were walking in circles all the same. He paused to reaffirm his bearings, and sure enough, what his senses told him held firm – they were heading East. Then why did it feel off? Was he just feeling anxious knowing they were nearly there, nearly to Soprano? Vagari supposed that was more than likely the fact of it. He had met opposition every step of the way, after all, and their journey through the bog had been a peaceful one – a turn of fate very much unheard of. Maybe that sense of strangeness was simply his body grown expectant of the blows? The pessimistic heart of him doubted that greatly. Unlike BP, he saw the world for exactly what it was – a predator, stalking, biding its time to sink deep its teeth for the kill. “Steel yourself BP,” Vagari cautioned, “our course will be a bit struggled ahead. That fog will be upon us sooner rather than later, I think. Now, I can get us through it, but I’m going to need your help. That ability of yours… Does it extend beyond your kin?”

“I think so,” BP answered with more than a hint of apprehension in her voice. “When I concentrate, I can feel things – other things, like the birds or rats, or the things in the inner city. I – I haven’t done it a lot though. I didn’t like the feeling it gave me… Like, I could see them, inside their minds – like Her.”

“You’re a psychic, class one or two,” Vagari informed nonchalantly. “A telepath. It’s a useful ability, to see into other people’s minds. We’ll need it on the road ahead.” Vagari admitted firmly. “I have ways to ‘see’ where we’re going, but not means to see anything that might wish us harm – at least not until it gets too close. I need you to be my eyes on that front, okay?”

“Okay…” BP replied, at first reluctantly, but then again with enthusiasm. “Okay! If it means getting you to your friend, I’ll do my best!”

Vagari couldn’t help but smile, looking back into those eyes once more, at the kindness and warmth radiating from them. What he was asking her to do scared her, but she was determined to confront that fear if it meant they would reach Soprano on time. “You know,” Vagari said with a chuckle, “I think I’m starting to like you.”

“Y-you mean you didn’t before?” exclaimed BP, but Vagari would only laugh in reply.

The dense mist enveloped them wholly within the hour – a white wall seemingly as thick as snow. It was a wonder they could even breathe it was so solid to the eye. But all the same, this posed to be a minor inconvenience at worst. What Vagari couldn’t see with his eyes he could taste with quick flickers of his secondary tongue. It painted a world of temperature shifts that allowed him to skillfully dodge pitfalls by comparing the heat of algae rot to the coolness of the waters around it. It tasted terrible, even worse than eating it. Wrapped around Vagari’s finger was BP’s own, clutching tightly as they inched their way forward into the white void of the boglands. Every once in a while, she squeezed a bit just to let him know there was still a living body on the other end. It was a welcome comfort, as both seemed hushed to silence by the walls around them. It didn’t seem toxic, not at all like the fetid slums of the Megacity; in fact, it tasted sweet on his breath. And yet, something about it caught their voices still in their throats.

They walked for what felt like hours in silence until a sound broke it – the sound of something crunching underfoot. “What was that?” BP asked in a whisper. “Sounded… gross.”

“You’re telling me,” replied Vagari with a huff, “I’m the one who stepped in it.” BP could feel him lean over, abet briefly before sharply lurch back with a hiss on his voice. “Remains,” Vagari informed, the disgust plain in his voice, “and not just some animal… There’s cloth here. It’s a algae farmer, what’s left of one anyways, and very fresh.” BP stifled a yip and squeezed his finger harder as the realization of what that might imply sunk in. “I – I’ve been reaching out,” she said quakily, “just like you told me, but I haven’t felt anything!”

“Calm down, BP,” Vagari told her kindly, “it’s okay… Whatever did this might be long gone by now, in that case. Or it might just have been an accident on the farmer’s part… Could have gotten lost in this fog days ago and just succumbed to the elements.”

It wasn’t wholly a lie, but it definitely wasn’t the truth of it. Something had killed them, whoever they were, and just left their remains scattered about – amongst many others. He could smell it now, just barely, beneath the sickly-sweet scent of the fog. Corpses, there were dozens of them, mostly of animals, but the newest were all human. Something had been here, waiting for quite some time, feeding on whatever unfortunate thing drew near. “Take a deep breath, my friend,” Vagari counseled, “and focus. You have the ability, but it’s raw, untrained. Reach out again, now, and look for anything – no matter how inconsequential it might feel.”

“Okay, okay… I can do that,” BP replied as she let out the suggested breath. Her heart was racing, burning like a sun to Vagari’s sightless sight, but it was steadily slowing as she focused. “Okay – okay… I can do this! I… I feel something… It’s really faint – almost… dormant? B-but it’s waking up! Oh no-no-no, Vagari I think it heard me!”

It appeared to Vagari at first as an ember in the darkness, a flicker of heat that erupted into a roaring fire as if some infernal engine had burst to life before them. “BP, stay behind me!” Vagari shouted, throwing stealth to the wind. A dull drone began to fill the air, that feeling of wrongness made manifest. His mind began to blur with a numbness that pulsed in tune with it. “BP… I’ll protect you… Just stay behind… me…”

“Vagari!” he could hear BP distantly call. “Y-you, what have you done?! Stay with me… okay? Stay with me!” Vagari tried to fight the drone, the mantra of paralyzing tonality, but he couldn’t. Within moments he was teetering on the very edge of reality and some place dark. “You must be the cambion Tehom spoke of,” a voice groaned out between tonal pulses. “Be silent, little thing, and you will survive… today.”

“Demon…” Vagari sputtered weakly. “BP… run…”

“Ah – but you, diabolist…” the voice mused darkly, the drone nearly turning into a chuckle. “Your little display has caught the eye of Death. A fatal mistake, as you can imagine. You can’t fight it. You’ve been breathing in my toxins for hours now – weakening you, chipping away bit by bit. You’re already dead. You just don’t know it yet… Now sleep and rest – eternally.”

A certain fear rose within Vagari as his second sight began to fade to the cold blackness of the void, a fear most primal, and most familiar. It was a pure panic, that he couldn’t fight against or even dare act upon. It was helplessness, fate, his will removed – the same as it was then, two-hundred years ago. But this time it wasn’t selfish, not a fear for his own life, but for hers – BP’s. “Run…” Vagari thought desperately. “Leave me and run…” She didn’t. Much to his despair he felt her squeeze his hand.