Welcome to the Dark Empire. How may we assist you.

1.1

I was still squatting in what was left of the old Packard auto plant when I heard the Call. A judge had ordered the place torn down, only to find out the reason the city hadn't done it before was because it would cost more money to tear it down and haul off the remains than to let it rot.

So half of it was torn down and left in piles of bricks and steel while the other half was still abandoned and available as free housing for me. Other people had camped out here now and then, but they let the cops chase them off, over and over.

For the city, making the cops chase off the homeless was cheap. Just time and effort for the cops who were already being paid. And didn’t that just put the cops in a great mood. A mood they took out on people like me. The people no one cared about.

So I was very much alone when people from another world started calling for help.

I wasn’t the only one who heard the Call. Thousands of us all over the world heard all of those who were capable of calling from their world as it vanished around them. All of them, all at once.

Most of us who heard them freaked out, hearing voices in your head tended to do that. Those that feared they were going mad either tried to ignore the Call or just said no. Then the people from the other side would die. Unheard and unwelcome.

Some of us said yes. But each one of us could only serve as an anchor to make the bridge for one group and once we made that connection it would block out all the other voices. Some answered the call just to silence all the others.

The spirit talker of one of the last tribes in South America brought in the Clan of the Shadows, who made themselves the guardians of his people. A girl in Louisiana brought in a tribe of goblins that settled right into swamp living.

Not all of those who called for help had our best interest in mind. Australia was lost to the Saguinvores, and something crawled into the skin of a man in Paris. They’re still finding freshly stripped down bodies every time the older, stolen, skins started to rot.

Me, I didn’t think I was mad. I knew I was drunk and off my meds as I heard the voices, and saw all the pretty people. The unicorns and fairies. The elves and dwarves. Even the less pretty people, the ones who were part man and beast. The monsters who promised to serve in exchange for their lives.

One by one, those that called were welcomed by others or went silent forever...

All but the horned folk. The demons. The horrors with fangs and claws did their best to look brave as they stood around their little queen. So fierce, so scary. Ready to tear apart any who demanded them to swear allegiance, or to try to humble their Queen.

She was too proud to make promises, too scary to be welcomed. As the other voices faded, still she called. Both for herself and her people that no one else wanted to welcome to our world.

But I also saw something else. I saw the children behind her. The old people who surrounded them, holding back the Nothingness that was destroying their world at the cost of their own lives.

I saw the face of their queen, and in it, the face of my Amy. My little girl.

“Amy?”

The queen frowned as she focused in on my voice. “Who answers? We are dying. Help us!”

I smiled, she was always so demanding “Amy.”

Holding out my hands. I welcomed my little girl home. “Come.”

My story may have been different if that was all I said. I would have been the anchor that made the bridge to save Queen Amidar and several dozen of her surviving people possible. But that wasn’t all I said.

“Bring your friends.”

2.1

I woke up on my bed made up of an old sleeping bag on top of a stack of flattened cardboard boxes for padding. My head hurt badly enough I couldn’t feel all the various pains in my body. This was not unusual for me, it was most often the goal.

The five cat sized gray dragons curled up around me, however, were unusual.

I tried not to move and wake up the gently snoring fanged creatures as I started to blink my eyes into focus while resisting the urge to reach up to get the dried up eye boogers out of the corners of my eyelids.

A girl with cat ears in a worn looking hoodie and jeans stepped into my line of sight and crouched down to look at me. “Good morning Dark Lord. Their eggs hatched during the crossing and they needed to stay near you to keep them stable until they have adjusted to this world.”

I took that in. “Wha…?”

“We have secured the drink called coffee from the shop of Starbucks.” She held out a cup with the familiar mermaid doing the splits logo, then seeing my predicament she yanked a dragon by the tail away from on top of my arm. “They should be fine now.”

The beast squawked in protest, then began sniffing at my drink. I hastily snatched it out of the cat lady's hand and ripped the lid off before taking a sip to test the temperature. It was just cool enough to chug down a mouthful of the stuff.

Looking around the ruined storeroom I had been sleeping in, I could see a red scaly, hairless, winged monkey in the window, looking out at the grounds below. As well as a big blue guy with four arms and a set of long horns going straight up standing guard at the door with a long pole with an ax head and spike on one end.

He gave me a nod and punched himself in the chest with one of his free hands for some reason.

I repeated my earlier question. “Wha…?”

She gave me a measuring look. "Your subjects await you Dark Lord.” Then she started dragging dragons off of me, handing each squalling lizard something bloody out of a leather pouch in her hoodie pocket for them to choke down. It was enough to quiet them down before she set to work at wrestling me to my feet.

Oh, yeah. There are all those aches and pains I hadn’t been feeling. Good morning bad back. Hi there sore knees.

“There are some very rude men demanding to talk to whoever is in charge. They seem to be upset that we collected tithes from the local merchants in your name.”

She half led, half dragged me behind her past many creatures out of nightmares.

At first, all I saw was the horns and scales. Then I saw the parents trying to hold it together for their children. I saw people weeping for those they had lost. I saw the wounded, arms and legs that seemed to have been melted down to stumps. A haunted look in their eyes.

Then I saw the flashing blue and red lights as a small army of big demon guys, a bus sized dragon, and a whole bunch of other creatures from bad fantasy movies facing off against a bunch of spooked looking cops.

Which was bad. Scared cops are even more trigger happy than tired, angry cops.

Then the tiny girl as the center of it all turned to me, gave me my dead daughter's smile, and bowed.

“The Dark Lord has arrived.”

I blinked.

“Wha…?”

2.2

The girl that looked like she had gotten dressed up in a Halloween USA Demon princess costume, but you know, a good one, turned to look at the cops. “We have held back from destroying these minions of yours my lord. Despite them being very rude. But I’m afraid I needed to give them a show of force to force them to respect you as your new subjects.”

She waved her hand to indicate a cop car that looked to have its hood and engine block had been punched in by a dainty little fist.

“We need you to deal with them my Lord”

Then she checked her nails.

I blinked as a sense of clarity washed over me. I straightened up to my full height, then walked forward a bit, the blue guy with the ax spear thing following me close behind. Looking back and forth from one end of the row of cops to the other, I finally asked. "What did they do?"

One of the cops that looked a bit familiar put his gun away with a relieved look. I think he had chased me around the place last week. "You're Frank, right? Frank Wexler, the guy who’s been squatting here. Did you bring these… People here?”

Yeah, that’s him.

I turned around to see a whole lot of people, question mark, looking back at me. I swear I had only seen a few dozen of them standing around with my daughter's look alike when I heard her calling for help. But there were easily several dozen of them looking on, just in this one group. Most of them looked like various depictions of the inhabitants of hell, but in different ways from the group that have been around the girl the night before.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Looking back at the cops I nodded. “Yep. This is my family.”

The cop looked a little gobsmacked. "Your family?"

I nodded again. “Extended family. Adopted. What did they do?”

He looked around for someone else to take charge. No one stepped up.

Looking back at me he explained. “They held up a Starbucks, cleared out a Dollar Tree, and a St Vincent Du Paul. Broke into a used book store, and…” He looked over the thoroughly punched cop car. “Damaged police property, resisted arrest, and assaulted several police officers.”

I looked around and didn’t see any injuries, or corpses. “Don’t look like anyone was hurt.”

The cop looked pretty angry. “They did something that made people fall asleep, including me and some other police officers.”

I crossed my arms. “So you got a whole bunch of people with magic powers all together in one spot. They got food and water to keep them out of trouble for the moment…” I looked over my shoulder and saw the girl give me a nod to confirm that. "So I would say you've done exactly what you should do with a group of refugees being found inside the US border."

Counting off on my fingers I ran down the list. “Contain, assist, and wait for someone else to show and let them be their problem. Sounds like you did everything a decent person should do.”

I waved at them to leave. “I suggest you pull back, string up some tape and wait for the feds to show up. I’ll try to figure out things out on my end.”

The cop wrenched his lips off to one side but nodded. “I’m sure I’ll get in trouble for this, but I think I’m going to be in trouble no matter what I do.” He holstered his gun. “Pull back guys, we’re going to lock down the scene and not get into a gunfight with people packing a dragon on their side.”

The rest of the cops seemed pretty happy that someone had made a call for them not to get fire breathed on them and backed off.

My mind slowly drifted back to the comfortable fog I had been living in for so long. Then I walked over to the girl.

“Amy?”

3.1

My daughter reached out and took my hands. I smiled at her. “Your outfit looks cute, but your mom is going to pitch a fit you went out dressed like that.”

She seemed a bit confused but pulled me along behind her. I didn't resist, or let myself think about how she wasn’t broken from the accident anymore. I was just happy to be with my girl again.

In the center of a large room, me and her friends, the kitty cat and Mr Four Arms stood around as other people slipped inside and waited in a circle. She looked up at me. “Samuel, I need you. We need the Dark Lord.”

I felt that sense of clarity begin to blow away the fog, I clutched as the girl, no… At my daughter’s hands as I tried to fight it. No, no, no…

“No...”

“You’re not my daughter.”

Through the tears, I could see her slowly shake her head. "I never intended to deceive you. I did not change my form to look like her, I did not alter your memories. I didn't know. My people were dying and you, only you answered my call. I didn’t have the time to ask why.”

She let go of my hand and spread her arms to indicate all the others. “Then you made it possible for me to bring all the others who had been turned away. Each of us saved, but too proud to commit to any agreements from any we had fought and plotted against in our old world.”

“We needed someone else. Someone with no ties, no history, with any of us. Someone we could claim as a leader to us all."

She lowered herself down to one knee. “All hail the Dark Lord. Our savior.”

A hundred voices called out roared, shrieked, or sounded out in my head. "Hail." As they bowed, knelled, or whatever else their bodies permitted. From each came the feeling of a wave crashing into me.

A wave of power that did something to my back, to my knees, to my mind.

The fog was never going to come back. I couldn’t even pretend that Amy was alive somewhere anymore.

I glared down at the inhuman monster that had taken that away from me.

“I will never forgive you for this.”

Her head dropped even lower. “Then that will be my burden my Lord.”

3.2

“Everyone stand up.”

I turned around and looked at the cat girl, now seeing her cat eyes, the claws, and the tail sticking out of the neatly tailored hole in the back of her jeans. "You, name."

She perked up and bowed. “Sangwen my lord. Your maid at arms.”

I perked up an eyebrow. “I don’t know what that means, can you keep notes?” She nodded and produced a cheap dairy which she opened and stood poised with one of her clawed fingers held between another digit and her thumb like a pen.

Not going to ask.

"We're going by size." I pointed at the Dragon. "Who are you and what do you need? Not long term, I'm talking immediate needs. Today, tomorrow, and the next day.”

The bus sized lizard who had only gotten its head and neck into the room rumbled deep in its chest before blasting out “I am Martagorn. Eggs were entrusted to me as the others of my kind died. Some have already hatched, others will soon. Hatchlings require meat constantly. My own hunger can wait."

I nodded. "We got plenty of seagulls and rats around here. Their organs may hold toxins and people here don't regard them as sources of meat. Can the hatchling eat them?"

The dragon narrowed one eye at me. "If others can hunt and dress such kills, the little ones can eat them. It is not easy to poison a dragon."

The lizard shot a cold look at the girl who had slunk away from me and seemed to be trying to avoid meeting my eyes. Must be some kind of story there between her and Martagorn… but dealing with that was not on the agenda for today.

“Good. Can anyone here put some people on that?”

Something wrapped up a shabby cloak with too many legs underneath it scuttled forward. “I am Prime. My people can hunt for meat. But we need to know what rats and seagulls are.”

The next few hours went like that.

Prime’s people were on meat duty, for anything furry without a collar. The winged scaly monkeys weren't into names that could be pronounced in a tone I could hear so their leader got stuck with the name Imp and his people were set on flying prey. Seagulls and pigeons soon began being carried in.

People who do magic that specialized in earth and stone had already been set to repair the foundations and the brickwork of the remaining building in the industrial park. While their Earthworkers, big stone robots, began carting over rubble from the half of the plant that had been torn down to be used to rebuild ceilings and fill in the gaps between the building.

Whoever showed up to take over from the cops might not be so easily convinced that pointing guns at people with magic was a bad idea. Twenty foot tall stone fences make good neighbors.

All told I had something like six thousand plus people here, most of them just funny looking versions of normal everyday people. So, a war of attrition wasn’t going to go well for my people.

My people… Well, I did invite them, they needed help, and I don’t have anything else better to do.

When the drunk had smashed her car into my minivan, my wife had nearly escaped injuries. I had broken both my legs and injured my spine. My daughter… They told me she died instantly.

I chose to believe them.

The medications I had been prescribed to make my brain work like a normal person’s from back when I was a kid eventually ran out. I didn't bother to refill them. Instead, I just kept taking the pain medication and downing it with alcohol.

I assume I got fired at some point since I never bothered to go back to work. My wife tried to stick around, but I drove her off. She still had a chance to put her life back together. I think she headed out to the west coast and remarried.

The only thing that had kept me going was knowing that in only a few short years, too few for what she did, the woman who killed my girl would be out of jail. Where I could get to her.

She died of a disease that she caught in jail first.

After that, I only cared about the pills and the drinks. At least until the Call.

4.1

Some of the people that girl brought with her, brought places with them as well.

Places either somehow shielded from what they call the Nothing, or cut off into their own space.

A round door made of pearl and coral held the harem of the sea king, his children, and the families of the servants of his palace that his wives had summoned and squeezed into their home.

None of them had the power to call for help, but the demon girl had known some of their children. So she found them.

The Endless Library existed in its own space that had links to all the great schools of magic. So well protected that no one who had gotten inside from all the many schools it had connected to could call out of it.

Some students from the demon’s school had made it in. The demon girl had found them.

Other places, great and small had been brought along. Others needed me to bring them.

The demon girl confirmed something I had begun to suspect. “The title of Dark Lord is more than a name, it idea with a magic of its own. Belief and trust in the Dark Lord empowers him. Everything you do to help your people strengthens their faith in you Lord."

She still wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I did feel stronger each time I had a meeting. But then doing meetings had always been my thing.

I had been a project manager for a chemical company that had stored old equipment in a building on the grounds. Finding a way to get rid of everything at a profit had been of my projects. It had also made me familiar with the place.

I turned to look the girl in the eye for the first time since she had made me be in charge. “And what about you Amidar, what is it your people need?”

She still avoided looking back at me. “Life. You have already given us what we needed Lord.”

When I settled into my bed which now included a mattress with my sleeping bag spread out below a sheet that had a few stitched up holes and stains. The blue guy whispered. “We would like it if you forgave her Dark Lord.”

4.2

The next day the local police under the direction of some guys in suits began to try to quietly evacuate the surrounding residential blocks. It didn’t stay quiet for long. The people of Detroit had some long memories and no interest in trusting people who were forcing them out of their homes, "For their own good.”

Beyond them, I was shown images of the State National Guard standing ready to move in.

Beyond them, news vans could be seen. Military copters had driven off these belonging to the news stations, and one was being allowed to get closer.

It was almost like they were planning something they didn't want witnesses for.

My council was gathered around me.

Prime raised up a small scaled replica of the industrial ground from the cement floor. Then he made a series of glowing lines extend from it in all directions. “We have prepared tunnels for our own escape Lord, and any who would wish to join us.”

A teacher from the library with pointy ears who looked very uncomfortable surrounded by people who he considered monsters offered up. “There is still a great deal of room in the library Lord Wexler. For those who can be trusted.” He gave Martagorn a sharp look. The dragon sneered at him.

I don’t think that guy was really down with the whole Dark Lord thing.

I slowly shook my head. "Can anyone do magic that put up a big image of me above the ground? Something that can be seen and heard for miles."

Several people nodded and murmured that they could.

So that is when my shaggy haired, unkempt, raggedly bearded image in worn out clothes appeared above the industrial park, ten stories high, and somehow looking right in everyone’s direction all at once.

“Hi. I don’t know what you’ve been told by the news or the politicians. But I assume that they are doing what they always do. Sell fear.”

“What we have here is not an invasion. It's a bunch of people, nonhuman people, who were going to die and needed a place to go. So I invited them to come live at a place no one else wanted.”

“The only ones who should be upset about that are the two or three people who think they should be getting money out of this. I don’t care about them, and I don’t see why anyone else should.”

"What I am concerned about is my neighbors. The people who live here are already having their homes taken away from them by people who don't care about them. People who are going to screw all of you over for their own greed."

“That isn’t going to happen. Because I’m going to make them a better offer.”

“First up. Gold. The people who came here used it for money. Real money. Not paper we all agreed to use as money. For those who own the land here, figure out what it’s worth and we’ll pay double that in real precious metal.”

"Second up. Magic. The people here were some of the most powerful individuals on their world. That's why they survived to get here. Getting into a fight with them is going to get a lot of people who don’t even want to be here hurt while the rich people giving the orders are safe far, far, away.”

“What they don’t get is that magic is not always used to hurt.”

I pointed toward the building my people were putting together on the north end of the grounds.

“That is going to be the Amy Wexler memorial hospital. Anyone who has been a resident of Detroit for at least a year, and any child, will be offered magical healing for free.”

"Broken limbs, broken spines, diseases, even some mental stuff can be cured with a single spell. Heck, their spell for dealing with poison took something called heavy water out of me. I've been told between it and a general full body healing should double what years I got left."

I shook my head in amazement. “For a younger person? Living past a hundred could become the norm.”

Pointing to the south I continued. “And it won’t be just their magic for long. We will be offering free classes at Packard Community College for residents of Detroit. That will be people of any age, as long as they lived here for a year.”

I spread my arms out. “So everyone out there being given orders to come in here, gun’s blazing, to try to take what is already being freely offered. Aren’t you coming down with something?”

With my arms crossed I looked all around me. “Might be a good day to call in sick. Heck, if you got something really ailing you. Healing for service members is free for today only."

“Just think it over. You signed up to serve your nation. Not to be thugs for the wealthy.”

5.1

It wasn't the people or the soldiers who changed how that day was going to go. As I expected it was the wealthy who saw a chance to get something their money could never give them. More time.

I was able to buy up the rest of the land on the north end. A really big tree from a hidden place that Amidar found after the people in it killed themselves and the place they had made started to unravel. Amidar got me to pull it in along with all the other vegetation and wildlife from their old world sealed inside.

The horned bunnies spread out pretty quickly. I guess demons aren't all that familiar with the concept of invasive species. The hospital sees several people with puncture wounds every day.

The girl’s father, the former Demon King had died trying to hold back the Nothing. So me calling her daughter and then rejecting her hours after losing her dad had hit her pretty hard. We didn't adopt each other or anything, but she was happy to let me do the heavy lifting as far as looking out for her surviving people.

She was one of the first students at my college. She signed up for the healer’s program.

Baby dragons fill the sky now instead of seagulls, and everyday people see the statue of my child as they walk in through the door of the place I named after her, to get well again.

I guess this is a better way to honor her life than killing a reckless idiot or slowly killing myself with pills and booze.

It’s what I choose to believe.