This end of the warehouse looked like an employee lounge or gathering area. There were a few benches and some tables and chairs. A large whiteboard hung on one wall. Written on it was an inconceivable mess of arcane runes and chicken scratch. Most notably, however, was the tree. Someone, or something, had busted through the flooring, subflooring, and foundation into the soil underneath. In that soil had been planted a tree. But this tree was unlike any I had ever seen. First, it was only a tree in that it appeared to be made of wood and had branches. It was totally lacking in leaves or fruit of any kind. The bark was smooth and grey-colored. Second, the tree was covered in fleshy lesions that were grafted to the wood. These flesh grafts were covered with tattoos similar to the ones I had seen on the mages. Many of the lesions were leaking pus and filth and seemed to be pulsing as if to the beat of a heart. I felt wretched at the wrongness of it and the Weird Feeling fairly clubbed me over the head. The tree pulsed with magic energy, surging and swirling around its barren branches.
I tore my gaze away from the tree and back to the matter at hand. The Sleeper had produced a wicked-looking curved dagger from somewhere in his robes and was holding it near Tina. She was dressed in a disheveled tweed business suit. Her hair was a mess and the sleeve on her jacket was torn at the shoulder, exposing her blouse underneath. Her suit skirt seemed to be twisted and rode low across her hips. Her eyes bulged and she tried to say something through her gag. The Sleeper raised a hand and she went silent.
“Now, now Ms. Goodwin. Let’s not give away the game just yet. Please, Agent. Have a seat and let’s chat a bit. We have so much to discuss.” The Sleepers' voice was cold confidence.
I weighed my options. I had one in each hand and they weighed about forty ounces. I figured I was fast enough to kill a man before he could stab Tina at this range. But, this wasn’t a man. He was standing mostly behind her, but I could hit him easily. The question was, would he use some kind of magic to prevent me from killing him or kill Tina. Would her life be worth the thirty or so migrants that were probably stashed somewhere around this place?
“Ah, contemplating some heroics, are we? So much like your father. Here, let me help with your decision.” He raised his hand and tattoos on his arm flared to life. The tree seemed to swell and then shrink as runes there flared to life as well. Power seemed to transfer from it to the Sleeper. He groaned with strain and I felt my pistols begin to wobble in my hands. Their protective runes flared brightly before giving way with audible pops. I watched in horror as the barrel of each of my two beautiful pistols was bent at a forty-five-degree angle. The Sleeper sighed as if setting down a heavy load and smiled at me. I could only see the lower half of his face beneath his cowl.
“There,” he said with satisfaction. “Now we can talk without interruption.” He motioned to a pair of empty chairs.
I stared at the useless guns in my hands. I was fairly sure this wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
I heard the slam of a heavy door and a painful groan. “I got the other one,” a gruff voice said.
I turned to see Teddy being marched in by none other than Chief Northcutt. He was holding my partner by his good arm and had a black pistol held to his neck. Teddy’s MPX rifle was slung over Northcutt’s shoulder and his Rhino revolver was tucked into the front of the chief’s trousers. Tina deflated and I could have sworn she rolled her eyes at me.
Teddy put on a brave face, but I could tell he was in a lot of pain. “Fancy seeing you here,” he said conversationally to me as Northcutt pushed him past me and deposited him in one of the chairs. The chief continued to the front of the room and leaned against a table next to the Sleeper.
I was out of cards to play. A sinking feeling hammered into my guts and I felt like I was falling. I let the ruined Ruger’s fall from my grasp and they clanked uselessly onto the floor. I staggered forward and collapsed into the seat next to Teddy.
“Young Daniel is going to be heartbroken over those pistols,” Teddy said dryly. He lowered his voice, “I’m sorry Cash. He surprised me and by the time I realized what he was up to, he had me.”
“It’s OK, Ted. I think we were outmatched from the start on this one.” I replied dejectedly.
The Sleeper seemed positively giddy. “I’m so glad we were able to get everyone together for the big moment. So many years of work.” He tucked the dagger away and pushed back his cowl with both hands. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was expecting to see, but it certainly wasn’t this. The Sleeper’s hood fell back to reveal the shockingly normal face of a fifty-something-year-old man. He could have been anyone. The assistant manager of the grocery store, the usher at church, the little league coach. He even had a dad mustache.
I was dumbfounded. Things had shifted one hundred and eighty degrees. Only moments before, I had shot my way into the warehouse with righteous fury. Now, I couldn’t seem to get my feet beneath me or my mouth to close. Tina looked scared and defeated. Teddy slumped awkwardly in his seat, trying to keep pressure off his left side. He noticed the abhorrent tree.
“Of course he’s got a Gallows Tree. But what has he done to it?” Teddy commented.
“A what?” I felt drunk and floaty. This seemed to be happening to someone else.
“A Gallows Tree,” the Sleeper responded helpfully. “Yggdrasil, the Tree of Woe, the place where Odin hung himself. The place where life and death are one and the same. Not the original, I assure you, but a carefully nurtured offshoot that I procured at no small expense to myself. And to answer your question Agent Ruthersford. I have perfected it. I have changed it and molded it to suit my purpose. It has become both a repository and a gateway.” His generic features took on the look of casual insanity. His eyes burned brightly but could barely overcome the banality of his features. It was unnerving.
“To what end,” Teddy asked.
“Ah!” the Sleeper put a finger to his lips. “Now that is a question! But, we can’t start a tale at the end!”
Stolen story; please report.
“Can’t we just kill them and get on with it?” Chief Northcutt asked with annoyance. “You need to give me what you owe, and I need to get the fuck out of Dodge.”
“Silence!” the Sleeper boomed. “I will not have you spoil my moment!”
Northcutt looked appropriately cowed. He eyed the floor and said nothing.
“I knew your father, Cash. Did you two detectives puzzle that out yet? I was known by another name then. The Dreamer, they called me. I dreamed of a world of equality. Humans and Metas. Monsters and Demons. Magic and technology. And, for that dream, I was vilified. Hunted. As revolutionaries are. The status quo would be protected. Many tried and failed the attempt. But then the humans got involved, the very people I was trying to help. To lift up.” He raised his arms up from his sides. The sleeves of his robe fell back revealing arms that were covered in tattoos. There was hardly an inch of skin that was not covered in ink.
“They finally sent Jack after me. Your father.” The Sleeper sneered. “Him and his damn scissors.”
I perked up at this. Teddy had mentioned scissors to me in the past. But, I was sure they had been destroyed in the fire. I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was movement. Up in the rafters of the warehouse. I didn’t look directly up, but I did change my tactics a bit.
“Did you kill my father?” I asked the Sleeper.
I saw the madness swirl in his eyes, but there was something else. Regret?
“And your mother. She wasn’t supposed to be with him that day. She was innocent of his crimes.”
“What crimes?” I had always thought of my father as a good guy, but after what Teddy had found out and my own recent experiences, I wasn’t sure.
“Your father appointed himself as my judge, jury, and executioner.” Whatever regret the Sleeper might have felt was gone, replaced by righteous fury.
I was a bit confused. “Executioner? But you’re still alive. He couldn’t have killed you.”
The Sleeper laughed at that and it was bone-chilling. It was a laugh of madness and of genuine loss. The kind of laugh that a broken man might have when he came to the end of his rope. It was either laugh or cry. It petered off after reaching a gut-curdling crescendo. “Sometimes, I wish he had,” he muttered finally.
The robed man began to stalk toward where Teddy and I sat. “He did kill the Dreamer that day. He turned me into the abomination that I am today. A fate worse than death itself. But, today, we commute the sentence your father inflicted upon me.” He untied the sash at his waist as he walked. He pulled at other fasteners, preparing to remove the robe.
I was having trouble following his ravings. His mind was broken.
“What did the scissors do?” Teddy asked politely.
The Sleeper looked at us both with a look of slight shock and stopped fiddling with his robe. “You don’t know?” he asked.
Teddy and I looked back blankly. We both had enough training not to answer that question. Let the criminal talk.
He laughed again, snorted this time with actual mirth. “Of course you don’t. He would never tell anyone what he was doing. Your father." The Sleeper shook his head. "Jack found me guilty of crimes against humanity. And he used his damnable scissors on me.” He was working himself up into a fury again.
“He severed my connection to the veil. He neutered my magic. He left me as common and normal as those I was trying to help. And then he left me, disconnected and alone. To live or to die. He laughed at me. That son of a bitch laughed. He turned the Dreamer in the Sleeper, with no more thought than one might give turning off a light. But who’s laughing now.” He started another fit of convulsive giggling that exploded into mad guffaws.
“But I found a way back, you see.” He resumed removing his robe. “After I arranged that little car crash. I began my quest to regain my powers. The powers that your father took from me. As you can see, there was a terrible cost.”
The Sleeper’s robe fell away from his body and I recoiled in horror. Every inch of his frame was covered in tattoos. There were huge patches of skin that were cut off. The raw red skin that grew back had been tattooed again. His entire body was covered in angry red lesions and ink. His genitals were covered with a Japanese fundoshi. As he got closer, I could see some of his tattoos moving, wriggling like worms. There were symbols, arcane ruins, but also images. Ornate dragons. Expansive, stylized trees. Hideous-faced demons. He turned in a slow circle with his arms raised.
“Horrific isn’t it. I first learned the art of the tattoo. A closely held secret in the east. I became a master, but the tattoos weren’t enough. The problem was one of power. Without passing through the veil to obtain energy, the tattoos have to find another source. As you have seen firsthand, drawing magic power from the body can have explosive results." He giggled. "So, what I needed was a battery. Some way to power my own magic without destroying myself.”
Teddy looked thoughtful. “You figured out a way to siphon energy out of others.”
The Sleeper looked impressed. “Exactly right. With some modification to what I learned, I was able to tattoo others. It could give me access to their own life force, to be used as magical power. And every time they used it, I took a little. The vig, if you will.”
“Quite ingenious,” Teddy commented.
“And, it worked better than I could have hoped.” the Sleeper smiled at Teddy. “Once my little batteries started using the power, it became addictive. They couldn’t help themselves, as they grew weaker and weaker. Even the ones that puzzled out what was happening. And when they finally exhausted themselves and expired?” He gave a wicked grin. “I always got a nice little pop at the end.”
The Sleeper turned from us and walked toward the tree. “Even still, I was missing a piece. This arrangement gave me enough power to say, burn a home to the ground.” He looked over his shoulder at me and smiled. “But the power was fleeting and unreliable. And maintaining an army of derelicts was tiresome.”
I didn’t miss the jibe. “You set fire to my home?”
The Sleeper pivoted and looked at me. “Yes,” he growled. The scissors needed to be destroyed. I stopped your father’s rampage by killing him. But I couldn’t chance them falling into the wrong hands again.”
“My wife and daughter died in that fire.” My stomach had become a cold pit of rage. A blue hot flame burned away the malaise I felt.
The tattooed man tutted. “A regrettable loss, but a necessary sacrifice. But, you managed to escape. That was my first clue that your father had passed on some of his gifts. But you seemed oblivious, plugging away at your pitiful policeman’s existence. I saw no need to finish the job. I’m not a monster after all.”
“She was six years old, you son of a bitch.” I leaped from the chair and directly into a right cross from Chief Northcut. I was sent sprawling to the floor and sat up looking in the barrel of Teddy’s Rhino.
“Just give me a reason,” Northcutt almost whispered to me.
“Fuck you.” I rubbed my chin and looked daggers at the large man. From my position on the ground, I was able to discreetly examine the ceiling. I caught a glimpse of black leather. Suppressing a smile, I slowly returned to my seat.
“Now, now, Agent Renshaw. It was regrettable to be sure. She was innocent. You all were really, but the scissors could not continue to exist.” He turned back to his grotesque tree. “Now where was I? Ah yes, my masterpiece. I needed a place to store the excess energy. I need a massive amount for this last part of the plan. I won’t bore you with the tale of how I obtained the sapling, I know Mr. Northcutt is becoming impatient. But I assure you, it was quite the adventure.” He stared off into space, remembering with a smile. “I raised it to serve my purpose. Blood and magic have made it grow quickly. Now, the power that I siphon goes here.” He patted the trunk, which appeared to be bleeding.
“But the process was slow and my needs are great. See, I learned a way to pierce the veil.” He dropped his voice a bit as if sharing a secret with us.
“Did I hear that right?” said Teddy incredulously. “You found a way to draw magic through from the other side?”
The Sleeper vibrated in place. “I did! With the tree, the impossible is possible. Life and death are the same. Runes mirrored on the tree can be made permanent. My life’s work shall be achieved!”
“And you’ve done this?” Teddy had gone from incredulous to downright doubtful.
“Well, as I have said. It takes a great deal of power. Fortunately, Mr. Northcutt here was kind enough to provide me with a means to shortcut the process.”
Chief Northcutt removed his jacket and folded it neatly on the table before removing his necktie. He then rolled up his sleeves, exposing red and blue glowing tattoos on his forearms.